Liverpool vs Bayern: Joshua Kimmich on captaincy, a debt of gratitude to Pep Guardiola and admiration for Jurgen Klopp

The Germany international is an integral part of Niko Kovac's side, who are preparing to face Liverpool in the Champions League last 16

“When I’m in an interview like this, I see from where I came… so it’s all so amazing for me.”

Joshua Kimmich is speaking and considering his place in the world, his career and what the future might hold as he prepares for a Champions League tie at Anfield.

The past has already been kind to the polyvalent 24-year-old, who boasts three consecutive Bundesliga titles in the three seasons since he has spent in Munich since signing from RB Leipzig, a club once considered a lower-league upstart but now chasing down Bayern for European qualification.

Those shifting sands in German football are a cause for concern at the Allianz Arena, and indeed at the club’s Sabener Strasse headquarters, where Kimmich speaks engagingly ahead of the trip to Liverpool and a date with Champions League destiny.

Bayern’s win over Augsburg on Friday night ensured that they will keep the pressure on league leaders Borussia Dortmund, with Lucien Favre’s side now just one bad result away from slipping into second having held a lead of double-digit points during Bayern’s wobbly autumn. Now the Munich club are getting up a head of steam after a slow start to what is undoubtedly a transitional season.

Kimmich is one of the key pillars around which this new-look Bayern team is going to be built. Asked about the expectation that he will one day become club captain, the feisty utility man revels in the responsibility on offer but the conversation slides into another useful little revelation about himself: his emotional side. It is what has made him one of the leaders of this team at such a young age. Those around him say it is what will one day make him great.

“When you are on the pitch, you want to take responsibility,” he says of the chatter marking him out as a future Bayern skipper.

“Also when you play so many minutes like me: every game I am on the pitch, so I have a lot of responsibility, and so I want to take this.

“For me it doesn’t matter if I am captain or not, when I am on the pitch I want to show my best performance, and I want to be always a good team-mate for the others and help them when they make mistakes; and also I hope when I make mistakes that my team-mates are there for me.

Joshua Kimmich will take on Liverpool with Bayern Munich (Bongarts/Getty)

“When I say something is going wrong, I say to my team-mates. I’m a really emotional player, and I’m not scared to say my opinion.”

Emotions, Kimmich adds, “are my characteristic… so I cannot hide.”

Perhaps that is why a talented young full-back became such a rising star during Pep Guardiola’s reign in Munich.

Kimmich still speaks so glowingly about working under the Spaniard, and not just because of his clear differences with Guardiola’s successor, Carlo Ancelotti.

Ancelotti benched Kimmich after Guardiola had made him an essential cog in the Bayern machine. Where Guardiola had memorably roared at Kimmich in the centre of the field, engaging in a heated face-to-face discussion at a distance of inches, Ancelotti left Kimmich out in the cold.

Joshua Kimmich celebrates scoring for Bayern vs Hannover (Bongarts/Getty)

It is the emotion, it would appear, which drives Kimmich and Guardiola on as much as it unites them. Asked if the Manchester City manager was his biggest influence in football, the response is almost immediate and certainly decisive: “Of course.”

“When I came to Bayern, I was a second-division player. For me it was a new world. The coach showed me a lot, showed me the spaces on the pitch. I trained a lot with world-class players, so I improved a lot just from training. The coach was amazing. Soon I was a national player, competing in the Euros. He changed me. He inspired me.”

Discussing that feisty on-field tete-a-tete with Guardiola, Kimmich dismisses the incident as simply “how he works.”

But the admiration for that part of Guardiola’s make-up is undeniable.

“He’s really emotional, so when he sees if there’s something going wrong, or if you made a mistake, he has to talk to you directly, not in the dressing room or one day after. He wants you to understand the situation, and it’s much easier as a player that way. Then you think, ‘I know what you mean.’ This is Pep Guardiola. You have trust in him, because you know he’s honest.”

Fairly naturally, with Liverpool on the horizon and a discussion raging about emotional coaches, the subject of the conversation finds its way onto Jurgen Klopp. The admiration is obvious.

Joshua Kimmich gave his side the lead on the night (Getty)

“It’s amazing how emotional he is, on the field, with the fans,” Kimmich says.

“You can see how he pushes his players – he can push them to another level. Every player is better with this coach.

“When you see their style of playing, they have a really good defence, and their offensive line is also amazing. They have a lot of speed, they have players who are tough in the duels. It won’t be easy to fight against them. Jurgen Klopp did great work over there.”

Faced with Klopp’s Liverpool and recovering from a poor few months to reignite their title challenge, Kimmich admits Bayern “can’t control the game for 90 minutes” right now. Doing so at Anfield this week will be even harder.

But it’s also a game that is “really exciting” for Kimmich, and an opportunity to reassert Bayern’s increasingly questioned dominance on the continental stage.

They have to contend with a huge game against Liverpool on Tuesday before a difficult Saturday meeting with Hertha Berlin – the sort of back-to-back fixtures they refer to as an englische woche (English week) among the Bayern squad.

Under the lights at Anfield, about as stirring a Champions League venue as they come, Kimmich will be once again fuelled by emotion. During the most English of their English weeks, Kimmich and Bayern must show that the German giants are strong again.