“It had nothing to do with it”: Kimmich unfazed by goal against Tottenham

Joshua Kimmich scored Bayern Munich’s opening goal en route to a historic 7-2 win over Tottenham Hotspur in the marquee match-up of Champions League group B. After going 1-0 down inside of 12 minutes, Kimmich leveled for Bayern in the 15th minute with fine long-range shot. His goal prompted the fightback from Bayern, leading to the 7-2 win thanks to a hat-trick+1 by Serge Gnabry and a brace by Robert Lewandowski.

Despite wining by such a considerable margin, Kimmich still felt that there were different factes of Bayern’s collective performance that could have been better. He was critical of his side’s performance in the 3-2 win over SC Paderborn last weekend, for which he received some criticism from club CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, but he still doubled down on his call for improvements (kicker). Kimmich received a 2.0 in kicker’s official player ratings after the match (a high mark), but still felt that the collective performance should’ve been better:

I spoke critically after the Paderborn game; I’d do it again in the same way, because that is simply my opinion. But not everything was super today. No one can make me bend.

Kimmich had received some indirect criticism from club CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge after criticizing Bayern’s performance against Paderborn. “He found the right answer,” sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic said after the show in London, although he also felt that “a little too much had been made” of the subject.

For his part, Kimmich said his goal had nothing at all to do with Rummenigge’s comments prior to the game:

It had nothing to do with what was said before. It didn’t influence my performance. I would have scored the goal anyway; [the comments] didn’t make the difference.

Kimmich’s goal (15th minute):

While Gnabry and Lewandowski may have stolen all the headlines for Bayern’s massive win over Tottenham, Kimmich’s performance was significant to say the very least, especially since he was pushed back to right-back after injuries to both David Alaba and Jerome Boateng.

Photo by Visionhaus