As planned since he left with his team, Toni Kroos (30 years old) will arrive, and in what way, for Cádiz this Saturday (6:30 p.m., Movistar LaLiga). Also, by extension, for Shakhtar and Barcelona, next week. When he was forced to request the change in Villamarín due to pain in the hip area and it was confirmed on the following Monday that it was due to a muscular mishap, this newspaper reported that it was not ruled out that he participated in this window with Germany. And so it has been: Antonio, as they call him jokingly in the dressing room, has played and shone with his country, also reaching one hundred caps.
On September 26, against Betis, a concern around Kroos was born. His retirement in 45 'was not bad news, but two: the loss of an important footballer for a game with an uncertain course (finally won) and for the subsequent ones. With the El Clásico a month away, a muscle problem put his presence at the Camp Nou at risk. But the alert was lowered in the following days, since it was announced that he 'only' suffered an injury to the left gluteus medius. The diagnosis was promising and the player, talking to the doctors about his habit of shortening deadlines in these cases, he imagined with Germany. “I'll be back in nothing,” he tweeted about it.
Kroos, the second in games and minutes in the Zidane era
So it was. After miss the visit of Valladolid and the exit against Levante, he let the friendly with Turkey run with the permission of Löw and joined for the decisive, the League of Nations. In Ukraine (1-2) he played the 90 minutes, with a 94% effectiveness in the home mark pass. In the crazy 3-3 game against Switzerland on Tuesday, he followed that trend, with his 100th game against Germany. He is the 16th German to do so, in a career in which he has contributed 17 goals and 19 assists, in which the 2014 World Cup shines bright and that began on March 3, 2010 with defeat (0-1) in the Allianz against Argentina. “This is a special achievement because it means that you have not done so badly when they have counted on you so many times. It is a round and beautiful number “, valued the madridista in Bild.
On an individual level, Kroos, including October 12 in the annual list of 500 soccer players World Soccer, he excelled again in the face to face with the Swiss. It was who most participated in the game (130 touches), with the merit of signing a 90.59% success rate in the pass, who shot the most (5, two very well intentioned) or the second who balls recovered (10, one of them ending in the final draw). He only had to regret the yellow that will prevent him from being against Ukraine. But that will be in November. Now it is his turn to return to Madrid, and he does it one hundred percent in spirit and physicality. It is also capital there. One piece of information reflects this perfectly: Zidane has only given Ramos more minutes (14,075) and Benzema (175) more games than him (13,943 and 169) since he was coach.