By Elliot Worsell (June 20)
AS Euros fever sweeps the nation, you will find it harder and harder to forget that for Toni Kroos, one of Germany’s star players, this will be his last assignment in a Germany shirt.
It is a nice story, after all, and Germany’s hope, with this being a home tournament for them, is that Kroos will go out in style, providing the story with its perfect ending; the very ending Kroos himself would write if granted the opportunity.
Then again, by virtue of him being in a position to retire when he can, it could be argued that Toni Kroos already has his storybook ending. Still just 34, it was only a few weeks ago that Kroos was helping Real Madrid win the Champions League; the fifth medal of that kind for the midfielder.
That success brought an end to his club career, meaning he finished well and truly on top, and it also highlighted the fact that Kroos, unlike so many athletes who consider retirement, has crafted his exit plan while pretty much in his prime.
Indeed, if good enough to start for Real Madrid in a Champions League final, and if good enough to have the hopes of a nation resting on his shoulders at a home tournament, one starts to question whether Kroos is maybe even getting out too soon.
This chance to leave them wanting more is a luxury. It is a luxury enjoyed by footballers more so than boxers, of course, and Kroos, retiring at 34, need not worry about finances or opportunities in the future. He is just fine. Or he will be. He has made his money, you see, and never will the need for it be a motivating factor to return to the sport he is set to leave.
He also has full control of his faculties and, aside from the odd scar here and there, will presumably stroll into retirement no different than how he started his career at Greifswalder SC.
For boxers, alas, this same trip is never as smooth. This became clear on Friday, the day Kroos opened Euro 2024 in a match against Scotland and James Toney, a boxing legend, was stuck giving interviews to interviewers doing their best to pretend they understood a word the former world champion was saying.
Both sad and inevitable, Toney’s slurred speech and inability to articulate his thoughts are of course a direct result of a 92-fight professional career and a reluctance to give up the very thing that has both defined and damaged him since he was a young boy.
Unable to let go, Toney, now 55, had his last fight in 2017 – for the World Boxing Federation (WBF) heavyweight title – and currently walks around not as a world champion but as something more akin to a cautionary tale.
To see him interviewed is to see the reality of boxing staring right back at you. You hear in his voice all the punches he has absorbed, both on fight night and in sparring (this thing Toney enjoyed so much), and you can also hear in this same voice the desperation to remain relevant and the struggle to extricate himself and do something else.
Footballers, blessed as they are by inordinate amounts of money and good health, rarely have this same struggle in retirement. They, unlike boxers, boast a degree of wealth and fame that is seemingly enough for them to find a level of contentment boxers make a habit of chasing in vain. This contentment then allows them to settle down, do other things, and whenever tempted either distract themselves with these other things or, quite simply, say: “No.”
James Toney never could say “no” and now, when hearing him speak, we understand what saying “yes” when the answer should be “no” really means. He is not alone, either. Few boxers, in fact, are able to say “no” when the time is right and then stick to it.
Some retire at the right time only to later convince themselves that the right time was actually too soon and that they must now try again before it is too late, while others associate “no” with surrender, the very idea of which is inconceivable to most fighters.
Truly, to get out at the right time and never come back is something of a radical act in boxing terms. It’s why we look at men like Lennox Lewis and Andre Ward and Carl Froch and celebrate their courage to stay away as much as we once celebrated their courage to keep going and win fights.
It is perhaps also why these men, when you listen to them discuss boxing nowadays, or even walk through arenas, tend to carry themselves differently than other retired boxers. Beholden to no one, in their every step there is a spring and around their shoulders there is a looseness.
When they speak, they speak not only with the lucidity of a boxer who escaped before boxing could leave its mark, but with the honesty and conviction of someone who beat the game, beat the system, and bucked the trend. In getting out when they did – on top, following a win – boxers like these are not weighed down by disappointment, regret, or unanswered questions, nor are they in retirement having to grovel for either work, respect, or acceptance.
They are instead as free as any retired boxer can possibly be, with only their competitive edge, forever an athlete’s shadow, following them around, whispering bad advice, and urging them to go back for more.