Joshua Kimmich was the first Bayern Munich player to step out of the dressing room last night, while the rest of the squad were all watching the penalty shootout between Manchester City and Real Madrid.
Was he not interested in the outcome and the identity of their semi-final opponents, someone asked. “I’m not taking any of those penalties, I can’t influence who wins,” the Bayern Munich midfielder joked, taking a cursory glance at one of the big TV screens showing the Etihad drama in the Allianz Arena mixed zone.
Kimmich had already done enough on the night. As Bayern’s make-shift right-back, shunted into defence because Thomas Tuchel doesn’t trust him at the heart of the team, the 29-year-old kept Gabriel Martinelli in check and scored the winner with a flying, unmarked header in the 63rd minute. “My most important goal ever,” Kimmich called it with a big grin. Indeed it was. His clever run into the box and emphatic finish has instantly turned Bayern’s poor season into an acceptable one that could yet deliver a quite wonderful ending.
Kimmich scores the only goal of the game against Arsenal (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
On a personal level, too, it’s hard to think of a more vital moment for Kimmich in a Bayern shirt. His season started with Tuchel explaining that he needed a different type of midfielder, more defensive, more pragmatic, chiefly devoted to protecting the back four. It continued with the manager longingly talking about his ideal “holding six” that never arrived while the all-action Kimmich, undermined by his own manager, toiled on unhappily.
His performances weren’t drastically worse but Tuchel’s public doubts gave license to both the media and former players to gun for one of the team’s supposed leaders when Bayern’s performances on the whole suffered.
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For many pundits, he was one of the main villains of the piece this season, positionally-ill-disciplined, a bit over the hill and perhaps even expendable. The distinct lack of verbal support by the club encouraged his critics further, as did unchecked talk of Bayern weighing up a sale this summer rather than a contract extension beyond 2025.
Kimmich disagreed with the suggestion that he felt gratified by the goal, but then went on to admit that it sort of did. “It’s not gratification but it feels very good,” the man from Rottweil — the town that gives its name to the eponymous hunting dog — said.
“I had to listen to a lot (of criticism) this year and received very little backing. But at the end this proves that hard work always pays off. I’m very proud how this evening played out, and I’m over the moon about the goal and us making the semi-final.”
Invited to expand further on that lack of support, he said that “every Dick and Harry” had been allowed to have a go at him, whereas there was “little talk in my favour”. It was therefore nice, he added, that he was able to bring about a more positive appreciation of his game himself.
Tuchel and Kimmich during the Arsenal game (Marco Steinbrenner/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Players are well used to assorted Harrys and Dicks spraying around negativity in the Bavarian capital. In Kimmich’s case, former Bayern players Lothar Matthaus, Mario Basler, Didi Hamann and Markus Babbel, ganged up to bemoan his “hiding” and “lack of presence” (Matthaus), his “jogging along in midfield” (Basler), and “his poor positioning” (Babbel) and Hamann wondering whether Bayern might not be better off without him.
Previous central midfielders in Munich, be it Michael Ballack, Bastian Schweinsteiger or Thiago, had all been subject of similarly overblown criticism but Kimmich was particularly stung by the fact that the club didn’t close ranks around him, the most influential central outfield player in the post-Pep Guardiola era.
In the past, one of the bosses or the manager would have surely shot back at the snipers to protect a player of his importance, insisting that they all had it wrong. But over the last few months, the silence at Sabener Strasse has spoken volumes in that respect.
The pundits might well change their minds, of course, and the same goes for the local media, which is increasingly dominated by tabloid narratives. But it will be interesting to see whether new director of sport Max Eberl will re-evaluate Kimmich’s importance — and that of other players who might be jettisoned for a reboot — in light of Bayern’s progress in the Champions League.
The club are no strangers to making it to the final four with a coach who’s about to leave at the end of the season — it happened under Jupp Heynckes (in 2013 and 2018) and Guardiola (2016), too — but this is still the most peculiar foray to the semis in modern time, with a manager who doesn’t trust his team and a team that don’t trust their manager proving that they can win together anyway. Kimmich is the embodiment of these contradictions.
Scoring with a header as a right-back, fighting continuously and popping in the right place at the right time — on Wednesday evening Kimmich reminded the rest of Europe of both his and Bayern’s enduring resilience.
(Header photo: Daniela Porcelli/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)
