MADRID – When Toni Kroos arrived for his first training session with Real Madrid in 2014, he went the wrong way.
Walking out onto the pitch at the club’s sprawling Valdebebas training ground, Kroos saw two circles of players kicking the ball between them and jogged over to the one on the left.
In his mind, that circle had fewer players in it. It was logical to bolster the numbers. But generally, the left circle is for the club’s Spanish players, the right for foreigners.
Nobody minded, some thinking Kroos was looking to assert himself or perhaps just was not aware of the code. The truth was Kroos knew the code but in that moment it made no sense to him.
For a club like Madrid, arguably the…
