Friday 10th December 2021
No “consequential damage to be expected”
Nagelsmann talks about Kimmich’s lung problem
After his corona illness, Joshua Kimmich will be missing from Bayern until the new year. Despite infiltrations in the lungs, coach Julian Nagelsmann is confident that the unvaccinated national player will soon be in top shape again. The public discussion “does not leave a trace” on the footballer.
Julian Nagelsmann is “not worried”. Yes, Joshua Kimmich is not yet allowed to do the way he would like after his corona illness, he will not play a game this year, he still has to take it easy because of a slight infiltration of his lungs. But for the time after that, the FC Bayern coach spread optimism. The situation is now “not so dramatic that one can expect consequential damage”.
Kimmich was allowed to end his quarantine today, but like Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, who also has Covid-19, still has to take it easy. Both “are allowed to do a little regenerative work under very little stress, but not great stress for the heart or the body,” said Nagelsmann. A new examination will be carried out after ten days, and experience has shown that the lung problems should have subsided.
“The normal course is then that the infiltration goes away, after which they can both be trained as normal,” continued Nagelsmann. In any case, he is “hard to assume” that Kimmich and Choupo-Moting will be “back with the team for the second half of the season”. The trainer explained that they weren’t going to train under full load right away. And again: “I’m not very worried.”
“He’s not the scapegoat”
Apart from that, Kimmich is “basically mentally stable,” said Nagelsmann, even if the situation is not easy for the national player. Kimmich has bumblebees up his ass, and he too would be “a bit frustrated” if he wasn’t allowed to do anything. In addition, the public discussion about Kimmich is preoccupying him: You “don’t leave a trace”, “when he is driven through the village, it’s not that easy,” said Nagelsmann.
It was also important to Nagelsmann to protect the vaccine skeptic Kimmich again. “He’s not the scapegoat. He made a decision that you have to accept,” he said, and at the same time warned: No matter how you feel about the topic, “it is very important and also a learning effect for everyone that you allow opinions in all areas. Otherwise, at some point, nobody will express an opinion, always in the fear that it will clang again. “
Before the hoped-for and expected return of Kimmich and Choupo-Moting, Nagelsmann now wants to focus his attention on the year-end spurt, which for FC Bayern on Saturday with the home game against Mainz 05 (3.30 p.m. / Sky and in the live ticker at ntv.de) begins. “We would like to keep the distance we have,” he said in view of the four point lead over Borussia Dortmund. “We just want to win the last three games of the year now.” This would have to succeed without Leon Goretzka, who still complains about problems with the patellar tendon. Serge Gnabry is available again for the possible 100th Bundesliga victory of coach Julian Nagelsmann.