Joshua Kimmich would have liked to continue training under Jürgen Klopp. But the Bayern star must leave the DFB training camp—even though he had hoped to stay.
For Joshua Kimmich, the German national team’s current training camp has come to an early end. The DFB team’s captain will no longer be part of Jürgen Klopp’s roster for the second week of the Nations League phase and must leave.
This was part of Klopp’s unusual “XXL” plan from the very beginning. The new national team coach nominated a total of 44 players and largely divided the camp into two separate squads. For the second week, featuring matches against Serbia and then in Greece, 25 professionals are ready to play.
Only six players from the first group will remain: Finn Dahmen, Yannik Engelhardt, Nico Schlotterbeck, Philipp Treu, Serge Gnabry, and Bambasé Conté. As Sport BILD reports, factors related to workload management play a major role in this decision.
Kimmich is not among this group of six. Yet the Bayern star would have liked to continue after the 0-1 loss to Greece.
Kimmich had hoped until the very end that he would remain with the team.
“Of course, I would have liked to stay, but I also understand that the coach simply wants to get to know some of the other guys. That was the plan from the start—to have a large squad so we could rotate players. So I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed from home,” Kimmich explained.
It’s particularly bitter for the 31-year-old: The next DFB match takes place on Thursday—in Munich, of all places. It remains to be seen whether the Bayern pro will watch the game against Serbia in the stadium, at least as a spectator.
Kimmich admitted that he had hoped for a change of plans right up until the last minute: “I was actually hoping until the very end that I could stay. I’m heading home for now, and then we’ll see. I won’t be going far because the kids are in school. So I’ll probably be at home and might come to the game on Thursday, depending on whether I’m there.”
For another Bayern star, the training camp had already come to an end. Jamal Musiala was originally scheduled to stay for the second week as well, but he suffered a torn muscle fiber in his thigh before the 1-1 draw against the Netherlands and left early.
Kimmich, on the other hand, is leaving the DFB squad in good shape and solely because of the previously scheduled roster change. After two matches under Klopp, the captain would nevertheless have liked to continue working with the new national team coach.