Sochi: Germany’s match-winner Toni Kroos criticised Saturday former internationals and pundits for putting the boot into the defending champions after their shaky World Cup start.
After ensuring Germany’s win with a stunning free-kick, Kroos rounded on those who had heavily criticised Joachim Loew’s squad after their woeful first half display against Mexico.
“Yes we deserved criticism for our show against Mexico, but it was apparent that there were many who wanted us out of the tournament,” Kroos told broadcaster ‘ARD’.
“Many people would have been happy if we had gone out. Anyone who speaks up, those experts, and anyone who writes about it can feel they have addressed things, but it gives me the feeling that it’s more fun to analyse or talk or write badly of us,” he added, before stating, “I’m not talking about the fans who go to the fan miles (fan zones in Germany).”
Now we have to recover and we don’t have much time before we have to beat Korea, when we have to play convincingly and better than our first two games
Toni Kroos
By his own admission, Kroos was at fault when he gave the ball away, which led to Ola Toivonen’s first half goal for Sweden. “When you play 300-350 passes in a match, there will be one or two which will go awry,” Kroos said. “The way we fought, we deserved to win. Some people in Germany would have been happy had we made an exit, but we won’t be making it easy for them.”
Kroos blamed the media for not giving the team enough support in Russia. “We don’t get any help. No one is going to write the title our way, we have to do it ourselves, it has to come from us,” Kroos asserted.
An opinion that was echoed by the other goalscorer for Germany, Marco Reus. “We know we have a lot of fans, but we won’t get any more help other than that,” Reus, who was named man of the match said.
“I agree with Toni that many in Germany wanted us to go out in the first round. But the game showed that we always believed in ourselves,” Reus added.
Germany coach Joachim Loew described his defending champions as ‘lucky’.
“The victory was a lucky one in stoppage time and we came from behind,” Loew said. “In the end, it was deserved because we believed in ourselves and stuck at it.”
