Tuesday, December 21, 2021
Munich’s “burning” for a comeback
Kimmich before a pioneering lung check
Joshua Kimmich has a special Christmas wish: He’s looking forward to his comeback at Bayern. But what does the lungs do after the corona infection? Tomorrow there is an important investigation that will determine whether the midfielder will be able to kick the ball again in the new year.
Joshua Kimmich can hardly wait. Like a child at Christmas, the national soccer player is looking forward to his long-awaited comeback. “I’m dying to get started again,” said the Bayern Munich professional recently impatiently. According to coach Julian Nagelsmann, the ambitious man has long had “bumblebees in his ass”. But there is still a decisive hurdle in the way of Kimmich and his return.
An investigation on Wednesday should clarify whether his comeback plan can be kept with the re-entry for the start of training with the German record champions on January 2nd. Or whether Kimmich has to wait longer because of the infiltration of the lungs after his Covid 19 disease.
“He’s fine, it’s getting better every day. He’s going to be examined again,” said club president Herbert Hainer on Sunday in the Sport1 one-two: “Then he can hopefully resume normal training after the winter break.”
Nagelsmann advises booster vaccination
For Kimmich, after difficult weeks with nationwide discussions about his vaccination skepticism, two quarantines and Covid-19, it should be a return to normal. He longs to leave the subject and the disease behind. That was already clear during his emotional appearance on ZDF. There he spoke ruefully about his vaccination skepticism and announced that he would quickly catch up with the small spades with the great effect.
He missed eight competitive games in Munich, and national coach Hansi Flick had to do without his midfielder twice. Kimmich admitted that this was why he had a “guilty conscience”. “It annoys him that he is absent. He is one of the most ambitious players we have,” said Nagelsmann. He hopes that the 26-year-old will return “in good shape and freshness” at the beginning of the World Cup.
The chances for this are good, emphasized Bayern team doctor Roland Schmidt. “According to current findings,” he reported a week and a half ago in “Kicker”, he assumed that Kimmich would be fully resilient again and will start team training “with the start of the second half of the season”. The autumn champion starts on January 7th against Pokal-Schreck Gladbach. Nagelsmann is also “not worried at all”. The lung issue is “not so dramatic that one can expect any consequential damage,” he emphasized. If the examination goes well, Kimmich will be “trained as normal”.
The coach advised the other Bayern stars to have their vaccinations refreshed during their Christmas vacation. “The break is ideal. But I don’t know who will accept it,” he said. In principle, Nagelsmann hopes “that we will be able to deal with the pandemic issue a little shorter when we start in 2022”. That is also Kimmich’s Christmas wish.