Despite the cast of new players that were called into camp for the German national team, Bayern Munich star Joshua Kimmich is ready to push forward — even without some players he has immense trust in.
Young, old, experienced, or inexperienced…none of it matters to Kimmich. He is expecting this group to win now.
“For me, these are not classic test or friendly games. For me, every single game is a preparation game — and we have to win every single game,” Kimmich told Tz’s Philipp Kessler and Mano Bonke (as captured by @iMiaSanMia). “For me it’s all about finding the rhythm, that we gain self-confidence in every game — also build up a certain continuity. I wasn’t surprised there were new players. I was rather surprised some players weren’t called up.”
Like many folks, when Kimmich saw the list of names being called, even he was a little surprised. However, Kimmich is not going to dwell too much on who isn’t going to attending camp. He just wants to make sure the group is ready to compete and prepared to win.
“Marco (Reus), Ilkay (Gündogan), Thomas (Müller), Niki (Süle), Leroy (Sané), Toni (Rüdiger) – especially the last three, I would have expected them to be on the list,” said Kimmich. “I spoke (with Hansi Flick) two or three times. Hansi spoke to many players and exchanged ideas. This phase will now be very important in order to work through certain things again — but also to set certain goals for the coming months.”