LOEW LOOKING FOR A LEADER AND HAS FOUND A CANDIDATE IN KROOS
PARIS: With Euro 2016 having already started, German head coach Joachim Loew has to solve maybe the biggest problem in a coach’s life – finding a suitable leader for his team.
Despite weeks of bad news with many German players out injured or others still struggling to reach full fitness, it looks like Loew is close to finding a satisfactory solution in the form of 26-year-old Toni Kroos of Real Madrid.
According to data collected by a new system, run by the Germany-based company, Impect, that counts the number of opponents that players take out of the game with their passing, statistics show that Kroos topped the ratings with 85 opponents. The average for the German Bundesliga is 28. The team with the better passers, according to “Impect”, wins 86 percent of the games. Kroos seems to be imperturbable. “I don’t feel stress before games. I think it’s my key to success. I can count on my skills no matter what kind of game is lying ahead,” said the midfielder.
He is also pleased with the new data system which he believes offers a more precise match analysis, “because it is about the quality of passes not about their number and frequency”.
Facts and figures might speak for Kroos, but is a better than average passing ability enough for a player to become a good leader?
German fans can still see the pictures of Schweinsteiger propelling his team to win the final against Argentina with blood running down his cheek after he suffered a cut. Maybe that is one of the reasons why Loew has picked the injured Bastian Schweinsteiger after a poor season with his club.
Having a man like him that can only currently play for 20 minutes is far from ideal. An ice-cold Kroos therefore seems to be the best solution for the time being.
Kroos appears to be the last man standing in Germany`s midfield as Sami Khedira is also lacking fitness for the role alongside the next German leader, whoever it may be.
“I always want the ball, take responsibility and am never overawed,” Kroos said. “In the end it all comes down to the fact that the more we have the ball, the more we dominate the game and the better the chance we have of winning.”
Kroos will have to fight for leadership and the fans’ hearts. When he left German champions Bayern Munich in 2014, many regarded him as being a valuable player but there were few tears when he departed.
Kroos left feeling he had not been fully appreciated in Munich. In Madrid however, he has generally proved that he is a class act. – ANAdpa