Exclusive: These are Kimmich’s World Cup goals
Mar 24, 2026 5:21 p.m. | 4:41m
In three months the World Cup will take place in Canada, the USA and Mexico. Before the first test match of the year against Switzerland on Friday (8:15 p.m. on RTL), DFB captain Joshua Kimmich looks ahead to the tournament exclusively to RTL/ntv and sport.de.
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Joshua. Are you ready for the World Cup?
Do I have to be that now?
Your Answer.
So generally I’m always ready. But I believe that. The March international matches are very important for us now. But there’s no point in being ready now and then not being ready when it starts. For us in football, the best part is perhaps also the difficult part: you have to be ready every three days. And that’s how we prepare for it.
Do you have doubts about something? About the goal, about the national team, about the lofty goals?
No, not at all with the national team. Of course there are demands from outside. There are demands that you have on yourself, demands that we define as a team. And of course you always have big goals and you can also fail. But we don’t worry about failure, we worry about the opportunity to achieve things. And I think the opportunity is huge for us as a team and we should believe in that.
What expectations do you have of the team? You just talked about that too. Make it concrete. They say, The best squad isn’t that important. The best team is crucial. Also with your experience. How do you determine that? What needs to develop?
Of course, a certain level of interaction has to develop on the pitch. In fact, it is usually the case that a team comes closer together when there are positive results. And it’s not like a team evening at the end will help us or the chatter you sometimes hear about drinking a beer together. But in the end, the work on the pitch is crucial. And everyone has to subordinate themselves to this big picture and do everything in training to ensure that we go into the games with a good feeling, that we have positive games. Then we will analyze the games, draw our conclusions from them, adjust things and then go into the next game and develop little by little. And the expectation is that we will become more consistent, that we will get a little more continuity, that we will simply become more stable. I already mentioned that I thought the last international match was very, very good in the way it was played. And the more we get on the pitch in this way, the more likely we are to win games.
Is it this willingness to give everything and also the will to win?
Yes, on the one hand will and willingness, but on the other hand also awareness that we need this will and willingness. It’s not like we can go into games and play away the opponents at 80% or sometimes at the same time. We are not in the condition for this. We don’t have the stability to do that, but we have to work for this stability first. And for this we need everyone to be aware that they have to give everything to achieve this. And it is also important that everyone knows that these games are now really crucial for our development.
That means the dream of the title doesn’t help, it’s too far away. So that works.
Then.
Sees her.
Not everyone has it and that can motivate and spur someone on in the long run. Nevertheless, dreaming doesn’t get you anywhere at the moment, but rather doing it. And right now that’s what we need to focus on.
What needs to be changed? I think you also learn from these drastic experiences, even if you have to do something different now in your new role, where you say as a successful person, then we have a better chance of winning.
That we become aware that the World Cup doesn’t just start with the first game, but rather with the journey there. And these two games are also crucial on the way to ensuring that we develop, that we develop further as a team, that we take the next step. And then it will be crucial to win, especially in the first game. Because unfortunately we didn’t manage to do that in the last World Cups.
Do we have enough quality?
Joshua Yes, absolutely yes.
How do you determine this?
The quality that I see on the pitch every day, and that I also see in the clubs between international matches. I am convinced that we have enough quality to form a very good team.
