National soccer player Joshua Kimmich wants to draw motivation for the upcoming tournament in Qatar from the embarrassing preliminary round failure at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
“That World Cup was the first really big disappointment of my career. I’ve never been so down in football. Physically I’m fine, but mentally it took me a few weeks to recover. I still carry that disappointment with me around me,” wrote the midfield strategist of German record champions FC Bayern Munich in an article for “theplayerstribune.com”.
In 2018, Germany failed at Kimmich’s first World Cup participation as the defending champion in the preliminary round as the last in the group. “I’ve been waiting for a new chance for four and a half years now,” said the 27-year-old.
The fact that the DFB selection does not happen again at this World Cup from November 20th to December 18th could help Kimmich, above all, the attitude at his club.
Pressure like FC Bayern
“Everything that we lacked with the DFB-Elf at the 2018 World Cup, we had two years later at Bayern,” explained Kimmich, who also plays a central role in the team of national coach Hansi Flick. The attitude of the Bayern players, despite numerous titles, to want to win every game has become so ingrained in his flesh and blood that I can’t withdraw and relax in training. Even if I wanted to – it doesn’t work. Something in me always makes me give at least 100%!” In football there are only two games that really matter: the last and the next.
The pressure now at the World Cup is like at Bayern. “The only difference is that the pressure with the national team is a little higher because we’ve been chasing success for a long time now. And as a player you don’t get as many opportunities to win a title for your country,” said Kimmich.
Maybe in the past you talked too much about the title and took the second step before the first. “To be honest, I don’t know what success can look like this winter. Maybe there are different expectations, maybe that’s not bad at all,” said Kimmich.