THE FINAL NUMBERS have been crunched at FIFA’s headquarters and Toni Kroos of Germany has been declared as the World Cup’s best player, statistically speaking.
The 24-year-old midfielder, who may be set for a move from Bayern Munich to Real Madrid, starred in his country’s successful quest for a fourth World Cup trophy. As an added bonus, Kroos has topped the Castrol Index, which FIFA used all tournament to rank players in terms of their statistical impact on matches.
Kroos held the top spot after scoring twice in Germany’s 7-1 win over Brazil in the semi-final. During his team’s 1-0 win over Argentina, he clocked up 14.3km on the pitch, completed 94 of 114 attempted passes and delivered a corner that Benedikt Howedes headed off the post on 45 minutes.
The midfielder was one of three Germans to make it into FIFA’s top 10. Defenders Mats Hummels [fourth] and Thomas Müller [fifth] were the other two. Nertherlands had three players in the top 10 — Arjen Robben [second], Stefan de Vrij [third] and Ron Vlaar [10th].
Beaten finalists Argentina had a sole representative in the index as defender Marcos Rojo scraped in for ninth. Surprisingly, there are two Brazilians — Thiago Silva and Oscar — included while Karim Benzema finished in sixth.
Lionel Messi, despite claiming FIFAF’s Golden Ball award for the tournament’s best player, was only 11th. The highest ranked goalkeeper was Manuel Neuer [Germany] in 17th.
Joint last [564th] on the list are players such as Fabio Coentrao [Portugal], Dante [Brazil], Julian Draxler [Germany], Gerard Pique [Spain] and Rickie Lambert [England].
Castrol Index top 10
- Toni Kroos, Germany (9.79)
- Arjen Robben, Netherlands (9.74)
- Stefan de Vrij, Netherlands (9.7)
- Mats Hummels, Germany (9.66)
- Thomas Müller, Germany (9.63)
- Karim Benzema, France (9.6)
- Oscar, Brazil (9.57)
- Thiago Silva, Brazil (9.54)
- Marcos Rojo, Argentina (9.51)
- Ron Vlaar, Netherlands (9.48)
