Joshua Kimmich has singled out RB Leipzig’s Timo Werner for praise as the Bayern Munich man prepares to face his Germany teammate in Saturday’s DFB Cup final.
After first showing his potential at VfB Stuttgart, Werner has become one of the Bundesliga’s most feared forwards since his 2016 move to Leipzig.
He has scored an impressive 50 times in just 93 top-flight matches for Die Rotenbullen, and Kimmich is fully aware of the danger Werner poses to Bayern’s ambitions of completing a domestic double.
He’s unbelievably quick, has a tremendous nose for goal and is a great finisher, said the Bayern full-back, who got another sight of Werner at close quarters in their teams’ 0-0 draw on Matchday 33. He doesn’t take long to finish things off. He can score with his right, left and his head.
Kimmich played alongside Werner in Stuttgart’s youth ranks, but instead of following the striker into the first team, he joined Leipzig — then in the third division of German football — where he learned adult football, as he himself put it.
The potential he showed there convinced Bayern to agree to sign him midway through the 2014/15 campaign, and the freshly crowned German champions have not been disappointed.
While Kimmich added a fourth Bundesliga winners’ medal to his fast-growing collection, Werner’s 16 goals made a major contribution to Leipzig coming home third, consolidating the runners-up and sixth-placed finishes they enjoyed in their first two top-flight campaigns.
I expected they would get promoted to the Bundesliga and that they would do well there, admitted Kimmich. But that they have become a top club so quickly is surprising for everyone.
