From a milk delivery man to the shadow of Toni Kroos

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Toni Kroos of azulgrana. Moving the strings in the center of the culé field. Making shine Messi from the engine room of the Barça. What sounds like a football utopia would have become real if not for Volker Struth. The most powerful agent in Germany advises the international Mannschaft since 2009 and, very unlike representatives like My no Raiola or Jonathan Barnett, does not stand out precisely for being a person eager to gain the media spotlight. He prefers to leave the prominence to his clients and remain in the background, from where he tries (and manages) to achieve the best for them.

In the summer of 2014 it was no different. Struth received Kroos at his farm in Majorca to deliberate about the path to take in your future. I was not going to continue in the Bayern, where the bosses denied placing him in the highest salary step and, after leading the German team on their way to the conquest of the world Cup in BrazilI had a multitude of specials on the table; among others, one from FC Barcelona. “I had a choice,” Struth recalls. But, despite not being the offer that, a priori, would have brought more money to his client, the founder of the agency SportsTotal was aware that the best destination for Kroos was the Santiago Bernabeu. As it was.

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About four years later, Struth was celebrating on the lawn of Kiev third Champions of his protégé with Real Madrid. The white club, in addition, renewed the German midfielder on two occasions and, this time, it gave him a galactic salary that amounts to about 15 million euros per year. “Real Madrid is a club with royal manners”, Struth came to describe the negotiations with the entity chaired by Florentine Perez, whose gratitude to him for being the person who convinced Kroos to sign for the club in the Spanish capital, appears in the footballer's contract and has entered more than five kilos in the coffers of the agency to date.

Of course, not all were bonuses and achievements in the life of Struth. Born on March 10, 1966 in the town of Pulheim in North Rhine Westphalia, is orphaned soon after and grows under the roof of his grandmother. “I remember my youth as if it were yesterday. My schoolmates went with their parents on vacation to Italy, Majorca or to South of France. I think I saw the sea for the first time when I was 19 years old. I never had a vacation. I know where I come from. If I have to spend a lot of time on the phone now, I usually sit in the car, put the speakerphone on and go around the neighborhood where I grew up. I did it alone, in very humble conditions; with my grandma. I know very well what life is like without wealth. I think my hunger came from there. In a way it was a survival instinct, “he explains.

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In 2018, the magazine Forbes it placed him in eighth position in the ranking of the most successful agents in the world, above any other German. The agent's secret is that he does not consider himself a mere manager, but rather a transmitter of values. “I usually tell my story to all the boys to instill in them what is possible in life if you really want it. When I see that a player opens up and is willing to talk about these things, one of my messages is: 'never forget, on the way to the top, that there may be stages where you go back down again'. I usually explain how well everyone is doing. I don't like arrogance. Especially because I was very close to dying on two occasions and I know what really matters, “he clarifies.

Struth is referring to his 2018 Christmas vacation. The doctor at his hotel in Las Maldives He prescribed pills for some abdominal discomfort and, seeing that it did not improve, contacted his GP in Germany. This one, 8,000 kilometers away, diagnosed a ruptured appendix. Given the difficult mobility in a country with 1,196 islands, Struth, suffering inhuman pain, was forced to take a boat, a private plane, a ferry and a taxi to finally undergo a surgical intervention that ended up saving him . In Germany, Kroos' agent was operated on twice more until, little by little, he recovered from the scare of his life.

He is a born fighter, something that is also reflected on his way to the top. He begins his professional life as a carpenter until he decides to reorient himself professionally and begins a module to become an industrial technician. “During that stage I was distributing milk at night,” he recalls. In 1994, he founded an office supplies company in his father-in-law's garage and began to put his business skills to the test as CEO of the events agency KölnTotal, where it comes to shine creating little flags for the car during the 2006 World Cup.

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“I am very proud to realize how far I have come. Every now and then I have to pinch myself, honestly. But, also, I paid a pretty high price for it, among other things with my health. My little ones couldn't enjoy their dad too much either, I was never the father who came home in the afternoons and played with them in the garden. There was no time “, admits a Struth who does not like to be reduced to his credit:” It seems to me the most superficial. People never wonder why you get rich. I know the way to perfection: working 24 hours a day, all week and for almost 30 years now, “he emphasizes.

The case of Marco Reus also draws attention. In 2012, the then player of the Gladbach became the object of desire for half Bundesliga, with the Dortmund as a great favorite being the club in which Reus played in his childhood. Of course, suddenly Bayern Munich crossed, which also went for the now captain borusser, and it was considered to pay the 17 million euros that appeared in the termination clause of the German playmaker. There was a meeting with the then Bayern coach, Jupp Heynckes, but Reus was pursuing only one dream: to return to the club of his heart. Struth was aware of this, parked the interest of Bayern and polished all the fringes so that Reus will end up wearing black-yellow again. To this day, Reus, despite a complicated tendonitis that has kept him on the sidelines since February, has become one of the great insignia of BVB.

And Struth isn't planning on stopping. Another pearl found on your customer list is Dayot Upamecano, French central in the ranks of RB Leipzig with a formidable projection and, therefore, with many other competing agencies trying to participate at once. For the French international, the powerful Mino Raiola, representative of stars like Paul pogba or Zlatan Ibrahimovic. George Mendes, the person behind the success of Cristiano Ronaldo, also groped him. But Upamecano didn't think about it; and formalized his professional relationship with Struth after a meeting in 2018, which took place in a hotel in Paris near to Arch of Triumph. Next to Sascha breese, responsible for the foreign market, and Raquel roseAn all-rounder that speaks up to six languages ​​and has an eye on the French market, Struth met with Upamecano and convinced him.

The player has not regretted it. It has been one of the names that have sounded loudest for Real Madrid in recent months, but the leadership of SportsTotal He proved once again that quick money was never and never will be above the interests of the player. Two weeks ago, Upamecano renewed his contract with the team sponsored by the Red bull, where is a fixed for the coach Julian Nagelsmann and you can continue to grow in the most natural way at 21 years of age. He signed a contract until 2023 that, like the previous one, includes a clause that would allow the defender to leave the East German team earlier if a club puts 50 million euros for him on the table.

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Struth has also recently represented one of the pillars of Bayern Munich. This is the case of Niklas Süle, considered one of the best center-backs of the German champion and the Mannschaft, who chose to turn his back on his former agent Karl-Heinz Förster and decided to put himself in the hands of SportsTotal. His case is the umpteenth proof of what the team led by Struth is looking for: young players with a lot of experience for the future. At 24, Süle is already Bayern's head of defense, something that will not change his nine-month absence due to the ruptured cruciate ligament in his left knee that he suffered in October 2019. For his part, Süle is aware that now he also plays in the agencies' Champions League, where Struth and his team will try to defend their interests as they did in the cases of Kroos or Reus against the most powerful clubs on the planet.

But as usual, not everything is a fairy tale. Struth's relationship with Mario Götze, for example, did not come to fruition. For, then, 37 million euros, the team of SportsTotal was key in the signing of one of the greatest talents that German football gave to Bayern in 2013. The problem was that “the white Brazilian”, as he was nicknamed after shining at Dortmund, coincided in Munich with Pep Guardiola, who had asked Neymar. It was then that Götze's career, despite his goal in the 2014 World Cup final that gave Germany the fourth World Cup, began to decline. It did not count for the Spanish coach, nor for his successor Carlo Ancelotti. The failed hero finally decided to dispense with Struth's services. He put himself in the hands of his family. He returned to Dortmund in 2016, did not take flight and is now looking for a club after being released.

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Struth himself never spoke ill of Götze. He explained that the break occurred “by mutual agreement” and stressed on several occasions that he wished him all the best for his future. Life has taught him that open fronts are useless. Struth seeks to protect the interests of everyone who decides to put them in his hands. Your success is that of your customers. He lives with a mobile in his hand and, from time to time, walking around the neighborhood where he grew up with his grandmother. Feet on the ground, something that he also demands from those who trust him. Players who go on strike to force a signing? “For these types of people we have the fame that we have,” he says. Its reputation remains impeccable, something that is rarely usual in its sector. And despite preventing Toni Kroos from dressing as a Barça player in his day.