“I should have deserved more”: Toni Kroos felt undervalued at Bayern Munich

Toni Kroos, former Bayern Munich midfielder and four-time Champions League winner, has been a household name in Bavaria since about a decade, but more so as a winner with Real Madrid than with his youth club.

In a new documentary depicting his career and life, Kroos candidly revealed that he felt unappreciated at Munich, despite frequent reminders about his potential. He stated that he regretted extending his contract with Bayern in 2010 just ten minutes afterward, and he did not actually want to return from Bayer Leverkusen. Kroos said (via Welt):

I was told very often how great I was and how I was doing everything right, But I didn’t play. It was really clear to me that I should have deserved more. While I signed the contract, there was this remark made by Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, “Wow, you have got a great contract now,” to the effect that I had to play even a little bit better now.

It is not just Toni who seems to think that he would have been better off somewhere else. Birgit Kroos, the player’s mother, said that her son had a “better” life in Leverkusen than in Munich and everything seemed a bit more normal there:

The team was far more personal. They met up, arranged BBQ nights together. They were much more normal in their interactions with one another. Not like in Munich. That was too fancy-shmancy for him.

Kroos had no intention of staying in Munich after winning the Champions League in 2013. Yet, Uli Hoeneß acknowledged like it was a bad decision to let him go. He said:

Toni is a super player. But there isn’t a single player in the world who can do everything by himself. A club sometimes has to make hard decisions. That was a hard one, maybe the wrong one, no doubt about it.

The documentary, titled Kroos, will be releasing in Germany on July 4.