Germany great Toni Kroos hopes the next game isn’t his last.

Heavyweights Germany and Spain clash at the European Championship on Friday, with the winner advancing to the semi-finals.

Kroos will end his playing career after Germany’s last game at Euro 2024. He hopes that will be the final in Berlin’s Olympiastadion. But he knows it could be as soon as Friday if Spain — the most impressive team so far — knock out the hosts in Stuttgart.

“I’m not nostalgic at all,” Kroos said on Wednesday. He said he wasn’t assuming Spain “will be my last game. So, I think we can all look forward to seeing each other again.

“We’re now finally in the stages of the tournament that we really wanted to be in, and we can be happy with that,” Kroos said. “We’re motivated, however, in the team and in the locker room, to get much further. And we’re convinced we can manage that.”

Kroos has played a key role in lifting the pre-tournament gloom surrounding the German team. It would be a fitting sendoff for a player who has already signed off on a glittering club career by winning the Champions League and Spanish league with Real Madrid.

“It’s pretty difficult to plan a European Championship title, but having it as a goal is of course the case,” Kroos said, adding: “I think it will be really difficult to finish more successfully than I left it with Madrid.”

Kroos retired from the national team already in 2021. But returned on request from Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann.

Kroos will face former Real Madrid teammates Dani Carvajal, Nacho and Joselu on Friday. The latter said he wants to send him into retirement, but Kroos took it with good humour. “I know him very well, I know how he meant it,” Kroos said. “So, I’ll let him wish and do everything I can so that it doesn’t come true.”

But as much as Kroos, the game will also be about some exciting young talents — Spain’s Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams and Germany’s Jamal Musiala.