Real Madrid has started the season playing some of the most embarrassing kind of football ever played on the football pitch. Yes, you read that right, a team that has the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr, Bellingham, and Modric in their ranks. The current UCL winners were downright awful in attack, midfield and defence against Las Palmas on Thursday night and only mustered an unworthy draw in the Canary Islands. It was almost as if a key profile was missing. A glue that held everything together. In other words, a certain Toni Kroos.
Last season, Toni Kroos was a diamond in the Real Madrid midfield. At 34 years of age, the German international was bossing the Real Madrid midfield ahead of the likes of Tchoumeni and Camavinga. More often than not, he was the first name in Carlo Ancelotti’s starting 11. Deployed in a deeper role than he has played for most of the time in his career, Toni Kroos made sure that Los Blancos controlled the game with his understanding of the sport, precise passing and leadership qualities. His innovation and control allowed others around him to play their own game and made Real Madrid an overall much better team. The number of times Kroos misplaced a pass throughout the whole season could have well been counted on one hand. That’s how clinical the legendary midfielder was.
And there is no doubt that Real Madrid is missing him more than ever now. In the absence of Kroos, it is Aurelien Tchoumeni who has taken up the role that the German played last season. And that is one of the biggest downgrades Madrid could’ve gotten. It’s not that the Frenchman is bad, it’s just that Kroos was too good. Switching the ball to the far side, pinging the ball in space for Vinicius to run into, these things Kroos knows like the back of his hand. Meanwhile, Valverde, Tchoumeni and others are not that technically gifted and rely more on their physical abilities to play Football.
And this has been evident in Madrid’s recent string of poor performances. Tchoumeni and Valverde have ranked highest in the most progressive passes statistic this season. While the numbers may deceive, the fact is that most of those Progressive Passes either amounted to nothing or were not successful. With speedsters like Vini and Mbappe up top, this metric becomes all the more important as runs in behind and over-the-top long balls become the easiest and most effective way to hurt the opponent.
Last season, the player with the highest number of progressive passes for Madrid was Toni Kroos. And most of those passes turned the game on its head or at least amounted to a big chance for Madrid. Toni Kroos’ long-time partner in crime Luka Modric, possesses the potential to play in the Kroos role as a deep-lying midfielder, but the problem is that takes away his chances of being closer to the goal and impacting the game in the final third. Furthermore, the Croatian will turn 39 next week and is not the same physically as he was 5 years ago. Hence, he lacks the physicality required to fulfil the No. 6 role.
While their forwards could do much better in front of goal, especially Kylian Mbappe, their midfield could maybe start stringing better passes and being more cohesive, and their defence could start contributing more in attack the fact remains that Real Madrid is missing Toni Kroos more than ever.
