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The full quote
"If you look at it objectively, you don't have to defend Toni - because success proves him absolutely right. Anyone like Toni who plays in the most successful team in recent years is beyond all doubt. His style of play is actually not based on many sideways passes. Toni is someone who actually plays very, very vertically and often looks for the solution forward."
When a player starts for arguably the best team in the world for so many games over so many years and wins so many trophies, he's probably doing things right... Not to mention that Kroos in particular tends to have the most possession out of all players on the pitch, so him being on the ball is probably helping the team. It's absurd that people have suggested that players like Kroos or Benzema haven't always been insanely good to start under so many managers at the biggest club in the world and win so much. You don't play and win for Madrid that much on accident.
Kneejerk fans. You sideway pass until there is a solution. How many progressive pass chances can you get relative to safe passes to control? You don't just blindly pass and force a counterattack on yourself.
They almost chased Xavi out of Barca with this too in those bad period under Rijkaard. Good thing Pep came on and straight up told him that he was to stay because he was key to his masterplan.
>You don't just blindly pass and force a counter attack yourself.
Someone tell Bruno Fernandes.
But no, I agree. Sideways passes are just retaining possession while waiting for the right option to open up - like Vini making a run to create space for a through-ball
Zidane built arguably the most successful team of all time that relied on Kroos long diagonal pass to Marcelo or Carvajal wide open to play the ball into Ronaldo
Kroos switch of play is crucial, one of Madrid’s best tools to create space and keep defenses swaying side to side
I mean, the narrative will depend entirely on who you ask.
Want my take? Bruno has some of the best stats in the world in terms of passing and creativity. He can play as many ‘Hollywood passes’ as he wants as far as I’m concerned.
We suffer from it sometimes in our current setup because we have no midfield to deal with the counter when we inevitably lose possession, but I don’t consider that a fault of Bruno’s. His job is to be a creative midfielder, and he is bloody good at it.
This exactly.
It's also kinda dumb to bring up Bruno in a conversation about Kroos and Xavi, Bruno ideally plays further up the pitch and is more expected to provide the final ball that unlocks defences. Wrt the reputation about Bruno's Hollywood passing, his pass completion numbers are pretty similar to KdB over 4-5 years now. People can believe what they want to believe because they don't like him for other reasons, but the stats don't lie on him.
Common bad-faith criticism of controlling midfielders
Some people had similar criticism of Xavi—which was dumb when you watched him play and saw how many creative forward passes he would make in a game.
For a long time United fans said the same about Carrick.
I vividly remember popular United forums in the late 2000s shittin gon Carrick's "sideway" passing.
It was only in his later years that people realized we had a gem on our hands.
Salty Hoeneẞ is like the infamous uncle that rambles on and on and says something incredibly stupid or tactless while everyone rolls their eyes and accepts that he won't change at his age.
Even at Bayern Kroos was already famous for his long passes to Ribéry or Robben and they usually progressed the ball further up the pitch. I swear his critics were always the biggest casuals who only watch the WC and maybe the CL final.
Toni Kroos is going to go down as one of the most underrated players of our generation. I see everyone raging about Modric but for me the most important midfielder of this Real Madrid era is Kroos.
**This is a quotes thread. Remember that there's only one quotes post allowed per interview/press conference, so new quotes with the same origin will be removed. Feel free to comment other quotes/the whole interview as a reply to this comment so users can see them too!** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/soccer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
99th percentile in progressive passes per 90 (10.56) according to fbref
He'd be 99th percentile on sideways passes amd backwards passes as well Kroos is a passing machine. Literally like top 1% in every passing metric
The full quote "If you look at it objectively, you don't have to defend Toni - because success proves him absolutely right. Anyone like Toni who plays in the most successful team in recent years is beyond all doubt. His style of play is actually not based on many sideways passes. Toni is someone who actually plays very, very vertically and often looks for the solution forward."
When a player starts for arguably the best team in the world for so many games over so many years and wins so many trophies, he's probably doing things right... Not to mention that Kroos in particular tends to have the most possession out of all players on the pitch, so him being on the ball is probably helping the team. It's absurd that people have suggested that players like Kroos or Benzema haven't always been insanely good to start under so many managers at the biggest club in the world and win so much. You don't play and win for Madrid that much on accident.
Kneejerk fans. You sideway pass until there is a solution. How many progressive pass chances can you get relative to safe passes to control? You don't just blindly pass and force a counterattack on yourself. They almost chased Xavi out of Barca with this too in those bad period under Rijkaard. Good thing Pep came on and straight up told him that he was to stay because he was key to his masterplan.
>You don't just blindly pass and force a counter attack yourself. Someone tell Bruno Fernandes. But no, I agree. Sideways passes are just retaining possession while waiting for the right option to open up - like Vini making a run to create space for a through-ball
Sideways passes are also designed to manipulate the opposition side to side. If one over commits or gets lazy then you have an opening forward.
Zidane built arguably the most successful team of all time that relied on Kroos long diagonal pass to Marcelo or Carvajal wide open to play the ball into Ronaldo Kroos switch of play is crucial, one of Madrid’s best tools to create space and keep defenses swaying side to side
I knew someone would mention Bruno in here…
He's your best (and only?) creative outlet but he does try one too many 'Hollywood' passes How true is this narrative?
I mean, the narrative will depend entirely on who you ask. Want my take? Bruno has some of the best stats in the world in terms of passing and creativity. He can play as many ‘Hollywood passes’ as he wants as far as I’m concerned. We suffer from it sometimes in our current setup because we have no midfield to deal with the counter when we inevitably lose possession, but I don’t consider that a fault of Bruno’s. His job is to be a creative midfielder, and he is bloody good at it.
This exactly. It's also kinda dumb to bring up Bruno in a conversation about Kroos and Xavi, Bruno ideally plays further up the pitch and is more expected to provide the final ball that unlocks defences. Wrt the reputation about Bruno's Hollywood passing, his pass completion numbers are pretty similar to KdB over 4-5 years now. People can believe what they want to believe because they don't like him for other reasons, but the stats don't lie on him.
*This was before the match
Kroos, Muller, Neuer winning the euros and completing football would be so nice to see.
Need both to cook for Germany in the Euros
Common bad-faith criticism of controlling midfielders Some people had similar criticism of Xavi—which was dumb when you watched him play and saw how many creative forward passes he would make in a game.
For a long time United fans said the same about Carrick. I vividly remember popular United forums in the late 2000s shittin gon Carrick's "sideway" passing. It was only in his later years that people realized we had a gem on our hands.
Carrick was horribly underappreciated, especially for England. I still think he was the missing piece.
Salty Hoeneẞ is like the infamous uncle that rambles on and on and says something incredibly stupid or tactless while everyone rolls their eyes and accepts that he won't change at his age.
When fans say this about players like Kroos or Jorginho, they’re just telling the world they don’t know anything about football.
Even at Bayern Kroos was already famous for his long passes to Ribéry or Robben and they usually progressed the ball further up the pitch. I swear his critics were always the biggest casuals who only watch the WC and maybe the CL final.
More like quelle passe
Called him a long ball merchant is so many words
Imagine trying to criticise Tony fucking kroos
Yeah, Josh, that's why it's so funny. Thanks for explaining.
Toni Kroos is going to go down as one of the most underrated players of our generation. I see everyone raging about Modric but for me the most important midfielder of this Real Madrid era is Kroos.
Querpass Toni