It’s no secret that Tom Bischof is a highly coveted talent who deserves more playing time for Bayern Munich and the German national football team, the latter of which he performed brilliantly with during the international break. However, it also comes at a time when Joshua Kimmich is on the receiving end of unfounded claims that he holds the team back, when he was in fact clearly misused in his role—exacerbated to some extent by Jürgen Klopp’s massive squad.
Bischof’s coach at Bayern, Vincent Kompany,
knows that the correlation in performance (and perhaps playing time) between club and country should not be blown out of proportion. Instead, he’s taking the positive performances from his players as they are and will not draw conclusions from seemingly nothing.
“We’ve only played six matches so far. The national team doesn’t play a part in my decision on the starting XI. I’m absolutely delighted when the players come back feeling positive. But if that’s not the case, they can put it it behind them there and then,” Kompany said (as captured by X account @iMiaSanMia). “We recently beat Union 7–0. I learned that with Belgium – things didn’t always go perfectly with the national team. Although I was at my best during my club career, I often came back feeling down. That’s when I learned to leave those feelings behind with the national team. That’s how I handle it now as a coach, too. The players should bring the good things back to the club and leave the bad ones with the national team.”
Kompany immediately clocked that the question was indirectly about Kimmich, which, if answered incorrectly, could cause a rift between players or start a media frenzy. The 40-year-old Belgian once again reiterated his disinterest in the discourse and made his stance clear: “As for these questions about Bischof and Kimmich – I know that’s what you were thinking about although you didn’t mention the name – I haven’t forgotten how our last few club games went, and haven’t forgotten who played well against Union Berlin, Bodø, Dortmund in the Super Cup, Stuttgart. I take that into account.”
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