Toni Kroos

Early career

Kroos first played for local club Greifswalder SC, later transferring to the youth team of Hansa Rostock. Kroos moved to Bayern Munich's youth setup in 2006. Kroos was missing up to 40 days during the school year due to training. For the 2007–08 season, at the age of 17, Kroos was promoted to Bayern's senior team. He made an astounding start to his Bundesliga career, making his debut for Bayern on 26 September 2007 in a 5–0 win against Energie Cottbus and twice assisting Miroslav Klose goals within 18 minutes of his appearance as a substitute. At the time of his debut, Kroos was the youngest player ever to represent Bayern in a professional match at 17 years, 265 days old, a record since broken by David Alaba in 2010. On 25 October, Kroos earned Bayern a valuable victory away to Red Star Belgrade on his UEFA Cup debut, coming on as a substitute in the 81st minute and providing an assist for Miroslav Klose and then scoring the winning goal, his first for the club, in stoppage time. He made his first start for the club in a 3–1 defeat away at VfB Stuttgart. Kroos ended his first season with 20 appearances for Bayern, including six starts. He also scored three goals in 12 appearances for Bayern Munich II in the Regionalliga Süd. Despite being selected to start in Bayern's opening 2008–09 Bundesliga match against Hamburger SV, Kroos appeared less frequently for die Roten during the first half of the 2008–09 season. On 5 November 2008, however, he made his…

Youth teams

In the 2007 FIFA U-17 World Cup, Toni Kroos was awarded the Golden Ball as the tournament's best player and also won the Bronze Shoe after scoring five goals. Kroos' debut for the national U-21 team came on 5 September 2008 in a 2009 Euro U-21 Championship Qualifier against Northern Ireland and scored the opening goal in the 11th minute, his second goal for the U-21 side was goal in Germany's 1–0 win over Italy, a precise long-range shot in the angle. It came as a surprise that coach Horst Hrubesch left him out of Germany's U-21 squad for Euro 2009, and Germany went on to win the tournament without him.

2010 World Cup

In January 2010, Kroos was called up to the senior Germany team for the first time, for a training session in Sindelfingen and was named in the squad for the following match, a friendly against Argentina on 3 March 2010, in which he subsequently made his debut for the national side. Kroos was selected to Joachim Löw's 23-man squad for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. He made his FIFA World Cup debut in Germany's final group-stage match versus Ghana, coming on in the 80th minute for Bastian Schweinsteiger, with Germany leading 1–0. He made further appearances as a substitute in the quarter-finals against Argentina, in the semi-finals against Spain and in the third place play-off against Uruguay.

Euro 2012

Kroos established himself as a regular starter in Germany's qualification campaign for UEFA Euro 2012, playing…

A tall and athletic right-footed midfielder, Kroos is regarded as one of the best midfielders of his generation and of all time. He is known for the long range and high accuracy of his passing and his ability to create goals with his passing and crossing from set-pieces. He has been described by Jonathan Wilson as "perhaps the archetype of the modern attacking midfielder". Wilson also described Kroos as "dynamic and hardworking", and praised him for his physical strength and versatility across several midfield positions. Kroos played in the centre as a deep-lying playmaker or even as a defensive midfielder due to his ability to both break up play, retain possession, and create chances for teammates. At the beginning of his career, he played as an advanced midfielder, before being shifted to a deep-lying playmaker as his career progressed. One of his signature moves on the ball involved him taking a run-on first touch past an opponent when receiving a pass under pressure, which allowed him to beat opponents and create space for himself, despite his lack of pace; this move was dubbed the "Kroos shuffle" in the media. Kroos had a wide variety of passes, and he was able to control the midfield with accurate short passes or start attacks with longer passes. Former Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes said in 2014 that Kroos, "a top-class central midfielder", was the player that United most needed to sign. Reaffirming his high regard for Kroos years later, Scholes selected…

Kroos was born in Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, East Germany, on 4 January 1990. He was born in the last year of East Germany's existence, several weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall and nine months before German reunification. His mother Britta was an East German national badminton champion and his father Roland was also a footballer and at that time, he managed Hansa Rostock's youth team. He has a younger brother, Felix Kroos, who was also a professional footballer. During his youth, he was a mediocre student and spent a lot of time practicing football, however, he was well-behaved in class and well-liked among his peers at school.