FourFourTwo’s Best 100 Football Players in the World 2016: No.23 – Toni Kroos

Stefan Reinartz retired from football in May after completing his final professional season with Eintracht Frankfurt. Injuries had reportedly taken their toll and the 27-year-old defensive midfielder couldn’t carry on.

Still nursing a burning passion for football, Reinartz took a keen interest in data analytics and understanding the game from a statistical viewpoint. You may have since heard of his – and team-mate Jens Hegeler’s – numbers-based examination of the game, which aims to decipher football in a more accurate way than the widely used ‘Expected Goals’ model (German football journalist Raphael Honigstein has written about the new method previously, for one). 

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