Sports: Kroos emerges as leader for Germany as they fight for knockout qualification!

• German football expert Raphael Honigstein argues that Toni Kroos is the most important Germany player as they try to left the early World Cup crisis behind them

"Two games into the World Cup, Germany's midfield and attack has gone from being written in stone to the great unknown. The only player guaranteed to start ahead of the defence goes by the name of Toni Kroos.

"The 28-year-old was always going to the most important player for the Nationalmannschaft in Russia, the man who provides order and calculation at the centre. But his 95th-minute masterpiece of a goal vs. Sweden, combined with an almost flawless passing record -- 95 percent of his 127 passes found the addressee -- and the unclear status of former A-listers Sami Khedira and Mesut Ozil, has also made the Real Madrid maestro his country's most influential player.

"'He was world class before. Now he has gone a step beyond that,' German TV commentator Marcel Reif said on Monday. Die Zeit, meanwhile, compared Kroos to 1970s icon Gunter Netzer, the stylish, long-haired diagonal-ball specialist, but the truth is that the national team has never quite had such a dual-purpose midfielder.

"When Germany needed him most, the man from Greifswald went from dominating a match to deciding it. No one else would have had the guile to attempt such a low-percentage, devilishly difficult shot as he did vs. Sweden at that moment in Sochi.

"Going into that game, Süddeutsche Zeitung had reported that his peers had doubted him following a poor performance vs Mexico. And a source close to some internationals expressed reservations about the lack of his personal involvement in various discussions and debates that gripped the Vatutinki base camp, telling ESPN FC that Kroos' self-contained way of playing to his own tune, come what may, might render him uninterested in wider group dynamics. Similar charges of heightened self-interest were levelled at him in the corridors of FC Bayern's headquarters before they sold him to Madrid four years ago.

"But those itching to light the touch paper on the wretched question of "leadership" that held back German football for much of the 1990s and early noughties were disappointed on Saturday night when Kroos gave the quintessential modern answer. He led, not by scything down an opponent, thumping his chest or bleeding profusely but by doing his job under pressure and bringing out his teammates' qualities in the process.

"The not-wholly-unfounded perception of him as a professional, who might have been better suited to playing an individual sport, has consistently detracted from his genius. But now that everything and everyone else is up for discussion, Kroos has become more than a key player. He has, to use a science-fiction reference, graduating to being the Keymaker, opening 100 doors to guide the national team through the Matrix."