Bayern Munich’s Uli Hoeneß goes to war with Toni Kroos over his criticisms of the Real Madrid star

We are a few weeks past Germany’s elimination from the Euro 2020. Die Mannschaft’s hopes of ending their dry spell were crushed by England in the Round of 16. In an interview given to Sport1, I former Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeneß discussed Germany’s disappointing European campaign and singled out Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos for criticism.

It is fair to say that Hoeneß did not go easy on Kroos. But if there’s one thing we know about him it’s that he does not ever go easy on anyone. Just like a fair number of German supporters, he is not a big fan of Joachim Löw’s three-man defence. He said, “The first two games in the World Cup qualifiers were pretty decent with a back four, then he changed to a back three, it was completely unnecessary. Why? Löw wanted to integrate Kroos.”

Hoeneß then fired his bullets directly at Kroos while mentioning that the Bayern players in the national team were not entirely happy with Löw’s decisions. He said:

“Bayern players are super self-confident guys who had a big say with Hansi Flick. I know they were totally unhappy with the situation, with Löw’s tactics. And yet they accepted it. I don’t understand, I didn’t know them like that. They should’ve said: Kroos no longer fits into this football with his sideways game. Our football is played vertically. The ball is played forward all the time.”

As expected, Kroos is not happy with the targeted criticism. He responed with a tweet:

“Uli Hoeneß is a great man with great football understanding (although that wasn’t enough for RTL) with little interest in controversy and totally at ease with himself. Similar to his greenkeeper.”

Hoeneß immediately responded to the player’s tweet: “We live in a democracy. Everyone can say what they want.” It looks like Hoeneß does not want to take this any further.

(Quotes via @iMiaSanMia on Twitter)