FIFA World Cup 2022: The unfulfilled promise of the Kimmich generation

Players like Joshua Kimmich, Leon Goretzka and Leroy Sané raised hopes for a strong new generation. But in major tournaments, the DFB team has recently failed twice early.

For a long time there have been voices from the management level of the German Football Association (DFB) and people who are very familiar with the matter who want to dampen expectations. It’s getting thin among the extraordinary talents. Other nations are now ahead of the DFB because it has made itself a little comfortable in view of the successes. Eventually, from the 2006 World Cup to the 2016 European Championships, the senior team reached at least the semi-finals each time.

At the Confederations Cup, which Germany would have preferred to stay away from a year before the 2018 World Cup, which would have looked pretty stupid as world champions, another trophy was won. National coach Joachim Löw gave some of the players a vacation that he had planned in order to successfully defend the title next summer.

9:18 a.m. – Pink future with Kimmich, Goretzka, Brandt, Sané?

Joshua Kimmich still found his way into the squad. Although he had already been called up to the all-star team at the 2016 European Championships and was therefore a constant, he was still young. At the Confed Cup, Kimmich was one of the representatives of the 1995 and 1996 vintages, who were already said to promise a good future for the national team. He was joined in Russia by Timo Werner, Julian Brandt, Leon Goretzka and Niklas Süle.

It was already known that Leroy Sané, born in January 1996, is exceptionally quick and has the same dribbling skills, and then there was this Serge Gnabry, who, however, was repeatedly held back by injuries. In any case, the future seemed more rosy than pale.

“Tournament team aD”?

Now that the sextet has gathered in Qatar except for the injured Werner and is joined by Thilo Kehrer and Lukas Klostermann, who were born in 1996, there is a risk of a black spot in the history of the DFB. For the first time, a national team could be without a chance of making the knockout stage at a World Cup after the second matchday of a group stage. Should Japan win against Costa Rica on Sunday afternoon (November 27th, 2022), a defeat by Germany against Spain would mean the end.

It would be a third early failure in a row at major tournaments. The German team has only won two of the eight games at the World Cup and European Championship since 2018. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” wrote about a “retired tournament team”.

Kimmich: “From 2018 simply not good anymore”

This addition is a flaw that sticks with national coach Hansi Flick in his first tournament as boss, but also with the class of 95/96 should the World Cup in Qatar be another bitter disappointment. “Since ‘we’ have been at work, we simply haven’t made it. From 2018 it was simply no longer good,” Kimmich had already noted critically in March, and that in an organ that is less known for critical reports about the national team , the “DFB Journal”.

FC Bayern has won all the titles with Kimmich in recent years, and he would probably have been world champion in the monumental season under Flick, but this competition is not advertised by FIFA for club teams.

Kimmich – player with a natural claim to leadership

“We’ll win the game,” Kimmich said before the game against Japan, which was then lost 2-1 because the German team lost something fundamental in the last 20 minutes. Flick criticized the lack of “intensity and activity” for the final phase. Julian Brandt reported on a meeting in which coaches and players came to the conclusion that a “switch” would have been necessary. The DFB selection lacked the instinct to set the urge for a second goal in order to secure the lead against improving Japanese.

First and foremost, a coach has to chalk that up, but so does Kimmich, the player with the natural claim to leadership, the strategist in central midfield.

The player who is now being discussed again, whether he shouldn’t play better as a right-back again. Flick, as his statements indicate, will leave him in midfield. Joshua Kimmich, 27, will be playing his 73rd cap against Spain. It will be a very important one, also for the subsequent verdict on the 95/96 vintage.

Source: sportschau.de