Review of the home tournament
©IMAGO
The dramatic exit in the quarter-finals of the home European Championship in the summer robbed national team captain Joshua Kimmich (29) of sleep. “As a father of four small children, I miss sleep every night. Not sleeping at all hardly ever happens to me. But this summer it will. The night after the quarterfinals. Against Spain (1:2 aet; editor’s note). “For me, the most emotional international match that I have been able to play in so far,” wrote Kimmich in an article for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung”.
At the beginning of July, after an exciting tournament, the German national team only lost to the eventual European champions after extra time and a lot of excitement surrounding Marc Cucurella’s handball. “Played well, put everything in and was still eliminated. At home. At the home European Championships. “We all had to deal with that first,” Kimmich remembered.
We then sat together and talked. “Some even until it got light and the first people came back for breakfast. With a strange mood between maximally disappointed and somehow special,” said the FC Bayern Munich midfielder.
For Kimmich, the European Championships meant more than just sport
Kimmich didn’t just see the home European Championships as a sporting impulse. “This last night, with the disappointment of elimination, without sleep, with a lot of conversations and also a lot of silence, helped me to understand that we cannot reduce this tournament to the sporting result.”
“Something has grown together again. Between us as a team and what feels like the whole country. Just like I experienced it as a child. The way it feels right and the way it should be. I took this feeling with me. That’s exactly why I remember this summer with a smile.”