English Translation
I wasn’t trying to trick you.
“I wasn’t trying to leave you on the cross”? is that the literal translation of the idiom?
“Kreuz” usually means “cross”, but some Germans call their back “Kreuz”.
As in “My back hurts / I have back pain.” - “Ich habe Kreuzschmerzen.”
In wrestling and other contact sports, if you can manage to get your opponent lying on his/her back, you won the fight. That’s where that idiom comes from. You try to win against some person. You try to make them lose against you. You try to lay down someone so that he/she is lying on their back.
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“Kreuz” is specifically the lower back region. It’s where you get the typical pain - “lumbago”, or in german “Hexenschuss” (“witch’s shot”).
I guess you can imagine the spine and pelvis forming a cross, and that’s where it gets the name from. At least that’s my theory.