After the short bike tour from the quarters to the training ground, Joshua Kimmich quickly had a ball on his foot.
The Bayern professional is looking forward to his DFB comeback after last playing in a 4-0 win against North Macedonia in Skopje in October 2021. The returnee takes his familiar place in the center of the German game in the preparation of the national soccer team for the Nations League – loud, full of gestures, ambitious. In short: very present.
Chaos, kids, comeback?
The 27-year-old from Munich was gone for eight months. In the past Corona winter, Kimmich became the central figure in a heated national vaccination debate. And most recently in March he missed the first international matches of the World Cup year because of the birth of his third child.
But now the all-time favorite is about to return to the DFB team this Saturday (8:45 p.m.) in Bologna against European champions Italy. It will be the 65th international match. Hansi Flick is happy that Kimmich is back as a fixed point. And the national coach leaves no doubt five months before the World Cup in which position he plans with Kimmich for Qatar: “I see Jo Kimmich on the six. That will be the case with us. I don’t see him in the full-back position with us. “
However, Flick does not issue his manager a free pass. Neither does Bayern colleague Leon Goretzka, Kimmich’s logical partner at headquarters. “The middle axis in particular is well occupied,” emphasizes Flick again and again, referring to youngster Jamal Musiala (19) and veteran Ilkay Gündogan (31).
In the battles for positions, no one spares themselves. Goretzka revealed that things can get a little heavier in the Adi Dassler Stadium when no one is allowed to watch training. “A duel with Joshua was extremely intense, where things really got going,” said Goretzka enthusiastically: “These are things that weld even more together. That’s exactly the spirit that Hansi wants to see with us.”
Flick trusts Kimmich
Flick’s attitude towards the footballer and Kimmich as a person has not changed as a result of the corona problem and the vaccination debate about the long-hesitant professional. In November, Kimmich was one of those players who had to leave the DFB quarters as unprotected contact persons after teammate Niklas Süle tested positive for the corona virus.
“The relationship of trust between Hansi and Josh is very high,” said leading player Thomas Müller about the possible after-effects of this time in the coach-player relationship. Kimmich remains Flick’s head of midfield. Captain Manuel Neuer explains why: “Joshua is an important player because he’s in a crucial position. In the center of midfield you have to weigh things up, do I make the game fast, do I make it slow. There you try to be strategic, even with a lot of talking.”