Toni Kroos reflects on Real Madrid retirement decision

It has been over a year since Toni Kroos retired, ending a sensational career at the top of football – and 10 years at Real Madrid. The 35-year-old’s decision was heavily questioned at the time, but he continues to stick by it.

And when speaking to El Pais, Kroos opened up on his reasoning behind retiring last summer, despite having been off the back of a stellar individual season.

“I spent several months thinking about this, I mean, I didn’t get out of bed one morning and suddenly say to myself: ‘You have to retire!’ No, I matured it very, very much. The previous year I had already thought about retiring, but in the end I decided to renew for another year with Real Madrid, who had insisted a lot. But that didn’t change my idea, which was always to retire like this, and luckily I succeeded.

“I wanted to retire at a very high level. I think it’s difficult to do better than I did in my last season with Real Madrid. I left after winning La Liga and the Champions League. Goodbye.

“The best thing is to leave it at the top. You leave with a great feeling because you are the one who has made the decision, rather than reacting to being sent to the bench because I wasn’t that good anymore or because I wasn’t as important for the team, as I was until the end… I preferred to leave myself. I wanted to avoid all that. Neither my coach, nor my family, nor my body were going to tell me when to retire.”

Real Madrid were severely affected by Kroos’ retirement

Kroos has maintained that the decision to retire last summer was right for him, but it had a very big negative effect on Real Madrid, which he has acknowledged himself in recent months. Los Blancos struggled to fill his void during the 2024-25 campaign, and it ultimately led to them failing to win a major honour.