Toni Kroos: "I was a Na*i for many people after what I said about Özil"

German and Real Madrid player remember how he felt after critizising his teammate Mesul Özil for stepping down from the National Team after the failed campaing in the last World Cup in Russia: "I was a Nazi for many people; blonde, blue eyes... everything fitted perfectly for many people".

Back in 2018, Özil who has Turkish roots, complained before the German Federation that they had been racists against him, which Kroos didn't agree with. This launched a big amount of criticism towards the Real Madrid player who was even "treated like a Nazi", as he stated during a discussion with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, president of Germany.

"I managed to get over it. Nowadays, anyone can hide themselves behind a fake profile and start to insult to people randomly without any sort of impediment", Kross stated and then added about Özil: "The way he stepped down from the team was not correct. In his statement, he also alluded to things that were completely innecesary and they were overshadowed by lot of stupidity".

Finally, the German mandatary talked about how to combat the cyberbullying which in this case had Kroos as the main target: "One possible solution must come from politics. Then, social platforms need to be responsible and finally, it's up to the platform users to have a proper behaviour".