Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos in total control mode to expose Liverpool’s soft centre
With 35 minutes gone at the Estadio Alfredo di Stéfano, Toni Kroos was yet to misplace a pass, or indeed, break into a jog. He looked fresh. He looked unhurried. At times he seemed to be carrying his own respectful green space around the pitch with him, ringed by discrete royal protection, like Edward VIII having a game of golf.
With 36 minutes gone Kroos finally missed his mark. Unfortunately for Liverpool his diagonal pass was met with a terrible defensive header by Trent Alexander-Arnold, and the ball nodded straight to Marco Asensio, who bundled it past Alisson to put Madrid 2-0 up on the night.
And in that first half Liverpool didn’t just invite Kroos to toy with their backline, they beseeched him, implored him, came on bended knee carrying vellum-bound instructions, the midfield bowing and scraping its way back out of the room as Kroos stirred in his sedan chair.
By half-time Kroos had done nothing but pass. No tackles, no dribbles, no headers. Instead he just ran the game, swirling that luminous white leather orb through the empty skies, hanging it up there, fizzing it, fading it, transforming the same ball everyone else was using into a malevolent thing imbued with its own weird intelligence.
And yes, Kroos will do this to you. It’s really not a secret. Nine minutes before the Asensio goal he produced a sublime long pass to create the opener for Vinícius Júnior – but this time it was almost too cinematic, angling his foot to get elevation and dip, but launched under absolutely no pressure at all. Kroos had so much time he might have wondered if the game had stopped, perhaps taken a minute to check with the referee the clock was still running. Vinícius, also given a free run, waited for the ball to drop before clipping it into the far corner.
Liverpool did wake up after halftime. Roused by Jürgen Klopp, they were more aggressive, less fretful on the ball. They looked like what they are – a match for Madrid when they play without that weird sheen of respectful anxiety. Mo Salah scored a significant away goal, made by his own speed and hustle. But by then this game was already running one way.
In the buildup there had been suggestions Liverpool’s “running power” would be too much for this ageing Madrid team. The talk after Arsenal – yes, Arsenal: there is a clue here – was optimistic.
Here they were faced with a midfield made up of the ageing midfieldwitch Luka Modric and Kroos, who lets