Toni Kroos' Real Madrid stint : Underrated and tough to replace - A Thread.

Toni Kroos' recent game against Cadiz was one of his very rare average perfomance, it could be just a day off, but it's time to prepare for the era without the fulcrum of Real and it's not going to be easy. A look on Kroos'influence in the club perfomances:

Toni Kroos arrived in Real Madrid in 2014 at 24 years for €25 million with James Rodriguez and Keylor Navas and was presumably expected to replace Xabi Alonso while James was expected to do so for Di Maria. Kroos had accepted the offer just days after winning the WC.

He has 50 goals and 100 assists in 465 games in his first team career out of which 19 goals and 54 assists comes from 7 years of his Real Madrid stint. These figures translate very less of his perfomance on the pitch though.

Kroos' passes completion rate averages an insane record of 91.87% and he has gone on to make 1900 successful passes per session for 5 consecutive seasons, a record in La Liga. And he also has a best 90.3 success rate of passes to final third, the best in Europe's top 5 leagues.

The biggest myth to be debunked is of him being a 'side-passer'. Kroos had recorded most successful longballs in La Liga and just not diagonals but include almost 3.3 key passes a game which are not being converted to assists so far this season.

Further, according to Bundesliga Fanatic, he took out 85 defenders with his passes per game in 2016 while the other DMs in similar roles averaged 28. In a league if his own.

Stats are not a wholesome measure of a player and without context, it is not defining, hence, looking into his contributions in accomplishments in Real Madrid : Team trophies :
UCL × 3
Super Copa de Espana × 2
La Liga ×2
UEFA Super cup × 2
FIFA Club WC × 4

Individual honours :
IFFHS World playmaker award :
2014
2017
2016
Apparently he got gold and silver awards in trophy winning seasons, decisive again.
He has 3 appearances in UEFA Team of the year and 2 in UEFA La Liga team of the year.

The fact that he had an 89% pass success rate vs Cadiz and yet it's his worse over the career shows how consistent yet underrated his career was. It's very difficult to replace his role of channelising and deciding the tempo of the game.

Surely departures of key players like Ramos, Modric, Casemiero and others will worry the club but Kroos'case will be no different and a player of his playstyle and his efficiency will be very difficult to find. His influence is not captured by g/a, pure genius.

Opinion-wise, his deep-playing anchor role dictates huge part of the game. Near perfection. Very difficult to find a replacement given the shift of nature of players in modern game.

End of thread
Stat source : http://whoscored.com ., bundesliga fanatic, ProfootballDB