Former midfield team-mate Toni Kroos had not anticipated Casemiro’s departure from Real Madrid to Manchester United.
Real Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos has revealed his surprise at the departure of former team-mate Casemiro to Manchester United.
The Brazil international ended his nine-year stay at the Santiago Bernabeu when he swapped LaLiga for the Premier League earlier this month for a reported fee of £60million (€70m).
Casemiro, who made his United debut as a substitute during Saturday’s 1-0 win at Southampton, enjoyed a trophy-laden stint alongside Kroos in the heart of Los Blancos’ midfield.
Together, they won four Champions League crowns and two league titles, and the 30-year-old’s decision to leave the Spanish capital came out of the blue, according to Kroos.
On his podcast Einfach mal Luppen, Kroos said:
“The decision surprised me to do that.
“He has decided for himself to do something new again.
“He’s 30 and knows he won’t need to do that in two or three years.
“There were more and more reports, and it somehow got hotter.
“In the beginning, I would not have expected it at all.
“And I thought it was just a rumour at first.
“But there are one or two newspapers here that are better informed.
“As more and more people reported and talked about details, I was awake at three or four o’clock at night when I was sick.
“Then I just wrote to him [asking] if he would leave me alone.”
Kroos, Casemiro, and Modric’s midfield trio will go into history as one of the best trios in European Football.
However, Kroos and Casemiro helped each other with their frailties.
Casemiro does his best wins the ball and give it to Toni, who progresses the ball into the final third.
Now, Kroos will try to make his partnership with the French midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni, who is a replacement for Casemiro.
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