Kroos wary of hard-working Juve

Bayern Munich duo Toni Kroos and Thomas Mueller believe the teamwork of Juventus is the Italian side’s key strength.

Speaking ahead of Bayern’s UEFA Champions League quarter-final first leg against Juventus on Tuesday, Mueller praised the collective power of the Serie A title holders, claiming their lack of an absolute star will make pre-game planning tough.

Bayern host Juventus at Allianz Arena with both teams comfortably on top of their respective leagues.

“Juve does not have a Lionel Messi who scores 50 goals a year, they perform as a team and they’re very united,” Mueller said.

“Because of this everybody knows that it’s going to be a very unpleasant game.

“Why unpleasant? Because you do not have to focus on one player because they act as a team, they stick together.

“That’s the nice part of football, if you fit together as a team, it’ll become very difficult for the opponents.

“In my opinion, that description fits Juventus.

“Of course we can talk about single players, obviously they’ve got a huge quality in every part of the team, but as I see them, the biggest strength of Juve is the whole team.”

Kroos believes only one team would have been a tougher quarter-final opponent than Juventus – Messi’s Barcelona.

“In the quarter finals of the Champions League there are no easy opponents but Juventus is extremely difficult to play against,” Kroos said.

“I said directly after the draw that Juventus is the most difficult team after Barcelona and that’s still the case.”