Joshua Walter Kimmich

About Joshua Walter Kimmich

Joshua Kimmich's senior career has taken in only two clubs, and the first one was not even in the top flight when he joined. Born in Rottweil, in Baden-Württemberg, in February 1995, he moved to RB Leipzig in 2013, when the club was still climbing through the German pyramid. The leagues he played in tell that story on their own: the 3. Liga and the 2. Bundesliga come before the Bundesliga, because Leipzig were in the third tier and then the second during his two seasons there.

For a young midfielder, that was an unusual education. Instead of waiting in a big club's reserve team, he played competitive men's football in a side that was ambitious, well organised and pushing for promotion every week. By 2015 he had done enough to attract Bayern Munich, and the move from second-division Leipzig to the German champions was a huge jump.

At Bayern he has stayed ever since, and his decade in Munich is defined by versatility. He arrived as a central midfielder but was used early on as a centre-back and then, for several seasons, as a right-back, a role in which he became one of the best in the world thanks to his crossing and his intelligence in possession. His assist total is high for a player who has spent so much time in defensive positions, and it reflects exactly that: deliveries from wide areas, set pieces and passes from deep.

Over time he moved back into midfield, where he has been the organiser of Bayern's play, the player who dictates tempo and starts attacks from behind the ball. He was part of the Bayern team that won the Champions League in 2020, as well as a long run of domestic titles in an era when the Bundesliga crown seemed to stay in Munich every season.

The interesting tension in his career is that both his club and his country have sometimes needed him in different places. Coaches have pulled him back to right-back when the squad required it, even as he has made clear that he sees himself as a midfielder. That flexibility has been an asset and occasionally a debate, but it has kept him at the centre of plans for Bayern and Germany for years.

Kimmich's path is the opposite of the travelling careers common in modern football: one formative stop in Saxony, then a long stay at the biggest club in his own country. There is no foreign adventure in his career, no loan spells, no return journeys. Just Leipzig's rise through the divisions and then Bayern, where a promising midfielder from the second tier turned into one of the leaders of the dressing room.