Lahm indicated that his heir, Kimmich, should look for another football

Joshua Kimmich, Bayern’s German international, is FC Barcelona’s top target to strengthen their midfield if the numbers add up. At 29 years old, the context is the most favorable in recent times for Kimmich to take the step to try his luck in another League. No one has doubted his quality in Germany since Pep Guardiola gave him the stripes in Munich, but it is precisely, his hierarchy, that has been talked about this season both at his club and the national team with very important tactical details. : return the right back to his beginnings by removing him from the leadership of the wide zone. Who is his mirror through playing style and through biography, Philip Lahmreflects Kimmich in an article in L’Equipe and compared it to the departure of some footballers from the Bundesliga as a necessary step to grow in international prestige. “Players like Jude Bellingham, Kai Havertz and Erling Haaland have to leave the Bundesliga if they want to become world-class players. This is another explanation for Joshua Kimmich’s loss of confidence.” “I remember well that he benefited from Guardiola’s leadership from the beginning. Eight years ago. Today, Kimmich is at his best, but as a full-back he plays in a position that does not perfectly match his dispositions, “ described former Bayern captain and 2014 world champion Germany, who currently serves as Euro 2024 director.

It doesn’t matter that it was precisely Lahm who warned about Kimmich’s “loss of confidence”, as their trajectories are similar in many ways. Lahm was a great back when Guardiola saw the qualities in him to lead his midfield, to an extent that the coach who, in the best Barça of all time, directed engine room legends like Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta and Sergio Busquets, Lahm said he was “the smartest footballer” he had coached, so “he could play in ten positions because he understood the game like no one else.” He saw something similar in Kimmich and also played him in various roles, including as a center back, but it was eventually as Bayern and Germany’s skipper that he received everyone’s attention, until the season it Thomas Tuchel, in Bayern, and Julian Nagelsmann , In the national team, he was placed again in the ‘2’ lane, in the national team to hand the baton to Toni Kroos in his return to international status.

In his article for L’Equipe, Lahm lists the virtues of the German football school as well as some of its shortcomings. He appreciates Xabi Alonso’s work to make Bayer Leverkusen champions because “Benítez, Mourinho and Guardiola are in Xabi.” In German football, he emphasized “the fight, the passion and the toughness of the competition that seeks to exchange blows, does not give up and, in one place, an opportunity is left to chance, of which Bayern is particularly which is unpredictable.” On the other hand, for Lahm “in other countries, and especially with Spanish and Italian coaches, they focus first on structure and order, while in German football they always talk about mentality.”

Kimmich’s contract with Bayern expires in 2025. The Bavarian club are facing a summer in which there are signs of renewing their squad after failing to win the Bundesliga for the first time in eleven years. In any case, at 29 years old, Kimmich will face one of his last opportunities in the market to test himself in other Leagues where “sequence” prevails. In any case, Bayern will not hand over a player valued by the Transfermarkt website at 60 million euros.