Joshua Kimmich deservedly named Germany’s player of the year for 2017

It should come as no surprise that Joshua Kimmich has been named Germany’s player of the year for 2017 for his exploits with Die Mannschaft throughout the calendar year. The 22-year-old beat out a bevy of talent on the German national team, receiving over 20,000 votes from a total of 52,761 that were made through the German Football Association’s official website.

Most notably during 2017, Kimmich broke Franz Beckenbauer’s record for consecutive starts with the German national team, having started 24 matches in a row across competitions. In Die Mannschaft’s World Cup qualifying campaign, he scored twice and provided ten assists (the majority of which came in 2017) as Germany cruised to a perfect qualifying record, winning all ten of their matches in group C.

Kimmich’s assist tally in qualifying was the highest of any other player in Europe - no small feat for a right back! Kimmich also played every minute in Germany’s victorious Confederations Cup campaign, where Joachim Low utilized a relatively young squad to get a closer look at some of his fringe players.

Kimmich’s contributions for the national team at only 22 years of age are nothing short of spectacular. He has already racked up over 100 appearances for his country, even wearing the captain’s armband on a handful of occasions.

Much like his consistency with Die Mannschaft, Kimmich’s numbers with Bayern Munich speak for themselves; he has truly become the bonafide number-one right-back in the wake of Philipp Lahm. This season, he’s provided a total of 3 goals and 10 assists across all competitions, and there are only four occasions on which he hasn’t started, including last weekend’s win over Bayer Leverkusen, when he was recovering from an illness.

The numbers speak for themselves: