Toni Kroos, the champion
Why Toni Kroos owes his greatest sporting achievement to an error of judgement.
Toni Kroos has achieved what no other German footballer has managed before him: in 2018 he won the Champions League for the fourth time, making him Germany’s most successful club footballer. Yet these successes are partly due to a misjudgement about his talent. In 2014, Bayern Munich let him go to Real Madrid for a comparatively small transfer fee. Since them he has been directing the team’s defensive midfield in a precise but unspectacular way. And now, Toni Kroos, the man with the number 8 on his shirt, has an opportunity to defend the title of world champion with Germany’s national team at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.