Later “punch” by Kroos against the referee after Cucurella’s “famous” handball in the Spain-Germany match

THE GERMAN BROKE THE SILENCE IN HIS PODCAST

In Germany, people insist that they do not understand the decision of the referee in the Spain-Germany match, in which the balloon hit Marc Cucurella’s hand during extra time in the quarter-final of the Eurocopa 2024. The match ended with a Spanish victory (2-1) after Mikel Merino’s goal in the final stages of the match, although the decision of the main draw that day continues to be heavily criticized.

On this occasion, there was another “Rajada” by Toni Kroos, one of the players who was on the field that day and seemed to understand the decision. Now, however, he spoke out in his podcast “Einfach übel luppen” (Simply ill luppen), in which he expressed his outrage at how staged the end of the session was. The referee’s representative noted that he had not seen it clearly at first and explained: “I have come to terms with it until today… I did not see it (the hand) at all, was not able to recognize that it was a relatively clear hand, which did not bother the referee at that moment,” he explained.

Toni Kroos is sure that the referee must have seen the game on the screen.

“Of course, I paid attention to the referee afterwards. He said that you didn’t even have to look at it,” the Germano analyzed the Englishman Anthony Taylor’s decision about the game. Although UEFA and the referee experts were of the opinion that the Briton had taken the penalty that was not called because his hand was in a natural position and the volume was barely increased. “I was just angry when I saw that afterwards. So… let it go,” Kroos said.

“On the field, he was wrongly trusted. I think he should have at least looked that way. But I think the problem is that when he looked like that, he knew he had to give up,” said the former Real Madrid player. “The referees themselves do not know 100 percent what the interpretation is. In the end, they have no choice but to accept it,” said the 2014 world champion.

A decision that made everything clear for Kroos

Following the referee’s decision, Spain won the match in the last three minutes of the encounter, ending the game with Kroos’ last hope of winning his first Eurocopa. The German concluded a brilliant career with 832 appearances, of which 465 were for Madrid (28 goals), 205 for Bayern (24 goals), 48 for Leverkusen (10 goals) and 114 for the German national team (17 goals).