{"id":154181,"date":"2025-06-03T07:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T07:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/154181\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T07:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T07:06:08","slug":"joshua-kimmich-not-leaning-on-history-as-germany-prepares-to-face-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/154181\/","title":{"rendered":"Joshua Kimmich not leaning on history as Germany prepares to face Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bayern Munich<\/a> star Joshua Kimmich has the utmost respect for Portugal ahead the UEFA Nations League Final Four this week even if Germany has won 11 times and only lost to Portugal three times in the last 19 meetings between the squads. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a topic for us in the team. It\u2019s a new team compared to the one from 2021. Both teams have changed. It\u2019ll be a completely different game,\u201d Kimmich said (as captured by @iMiaSanMia<\/a>). <\/p>\n

Heck, with so many injuries, the German national will look a lot different from the last international break in March. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to focus on the players who are here. Of course it\u2019s bitter and annoying that there are so many injuries, but there\u2019s no point in talking about that because the players who are at home won\u2019t help us. We still have a lot of quality and enough good players to win both games,\u201d Kimmich said. <\/p>\n

The Bayern Munich midfielder will earn his 100th cap on Wednesday, a big achievement for the team\u2019s captain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt actually means a lot to me. It\u2019s a big honor to have played this many games for Germany. It shows that I\u2019ve been showing a very good level over the past 9-10 years, and thankfully also rarely injured. I\u2019ve had many ups and downs with the national team, it\u2019s a big honor to be here and hope there\u2019s more to come,\u201d said Kimmich. <\/p>\n

When told that he will be \u201cthe 14th player with 100+ caps for Germany and the only one without a World Cup title\u201d, Kimmich had a chuckle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still a few chances. That means we had World Cup campaigns where we weren\u2019t successful,\u201d Kimmich said with a laugh. \u201cWe have to do better. We felt at the EUROs that there was a connection between the team and the country, even though we didn\u2019t win the title. That\u2019s the goal. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019ll be enough to win the biggest titles, it depends on many factors and small details. We\u2019ll try to prepare well for the World Cup, we\u2019re on a good path\u201d<\/p>\n

One player who will be more capped than Kimmich in the game is Portugal\u2019s Cristian Ronaldo. Kimmich said the 40-year-old is still a threat. <\/p>\n

\u201cI read that he scored 130 or 132 goals for the national team. There\u2019s still a long way to go for that. Cristiano Ronaldo has crazy numbers, especially when you look at the consistency, he\u2019s been playing at a very high level for over 20 years \u2014 he performed for his country. For me 100 caps already make me very proud,\u201d said Kimmich. <\/p>\n

Looking for more thoughts and analysis of the German national team\u2019s match against Portugal in the UEFA Nations League Final Four? Awesome, then check out our Bavarian Podcast Works \u2014 Preview Show. You can get the podcast on Patreon<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, Acast<\/a>, or below:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Also, be sure to stay tuned to Bavarian Podcast Works for all of your up to date coverage on Bayern Munich and Germany. Check us out on Patreon<\/strong><\/a> and follow us on Twitter @BavarianFBWorks, @BavarianPodcast @TheBarrelBlog, @BFWCyler, @2012nonexistent, @TommyAdams71 and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bayern Munich star Joshua Kimmich has the utmost respect for Portugal ahead the UEFA Nations League Final Four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[27616,6098,2000,299,26660,94,163,1824,6100,2348,65611,65612,65613,10518,254,3046,22233,6101,6093,6099],"class_list":{"0":"post-154181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-as","9":"tag-bavarian","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-face","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-front-page","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-germany-international-soccer","17":"tag-history","18":"tag-joshua","19":"tag-kimmich","20":"tag-leaning","21":"tag-not","22":"tag-on","23":"tag-portugal","24":"tag-prepares","25":"tag-soccer-sg","26":"tag-to","27":"tag-works"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114618170679729881","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}