The last time German football stood at the very top of the pile, after West Germany’s win at the World Cup in 1990, the then head coach of the champions, Franz Beckenbauer, made a prediction: “With our strengths, plus the addition of East Germany, we will be become unbeatable.”
The Berlin Wall had just fallen and the two separate, sovereign Germanies formed after World War II were reuniting.
Beckenbauer’s forecast seemed logical. Elegant East German players, like Mathias Sammer – now director of football at Bayern – soon eased into the New Germany team; a brilliant young midfielder born and schooled in the socialist, former German Democratic Republic (DDR), Michael Ballack, would emerge at the turn of a millennium, a future captain of the national side and star of Bayern Munich, the superstate’s superclub.
What the swelling of resources did not do, in nearly a quarter of a century since the first bricks of the Berlin Wall were pickaxed away, is produce the all-conquering Germany Beckenbauer predicted. Italia 90 was the last German last World Cup victory. But the old DDR does have a serial winner, who on Wednesday in Madrid will seek to guide Bayern towards a third successive Uefa Champions League final, and in June and July hopes to help steer Germany to World Cup success.
He is Toni Kroos, born in Greifswald, on the Baltic, a few months before the city switched from being part of the DDR to part of the united Germany. His parents were both sportspeople, his mother an East German international badminton player, his father Roland a football coach, who now works for the Bundesliga II club, Hansa Rostock.
Roland Kroos believes one of the virtues of the old DDR’s socialist vision were its sports schools; his sons Toni and Felix grew up with aspects of it, and evidently benefited from the rigour and expertise of their dad.
Felix is a regular in the midfield of Werder Bremen. Toni is statistically the top passer left in the Champions League, the midfielder most trusted by Bayern coach Pep Guardiola to direct strategy in the competition, and the focus, partly because of his composed, mature displays, of widespread admiration.
The attention from elsewhere suits him. Kroos’s talks with Bayern over renewing a contract that expires next year have stalled. Manchester United, and Wednesday night’s opponents, Madrid, are among those keen to offer him an alternative place of work.
Bayern, and Guardiola, insist they want him to stay. Kroos, 24, wants to be valued – and paid – as highly as the other young midfielders, like Mario Gotze, Thiago Alcantara and Thomas Muller, in Bayern’s replete squad.
He should achieve that over the coming months. In the meantime, he will seek to impose himself on Wednesday night, the fulcrum of Bayern’s possession-based game, perhaps take his number of passes in the competition so far beyond 1,000, always keeping in the back of his mind the potent threat he poses shooting from distance.
Witness his beautiful curling effort in the last-16 first leg against Arsenal. Long-range accuracy was something Toni and Felix practised and practised with Roland, according to the senior Kroos, from a very young age.
He has some demons to slay at the Bernabeu, too. Kroos had a penalty saved by Iker Casillas when the semi-final meeting between the two clubs went to spot-kicks in 2012, and seemed reluctant to be put himself among the penalty-takers when the Munich final that year, a defeat against Chelsea, went to spot-kicks.
Some amends have since been made: the Champions League, won last May, two Bundesliga titles achieved, plus a Uefa Super Cup, a German Cup and a World Club Cup. Kroos would find it hard to dismount the Bayern medal-factory for another club.
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