What Joshua Kimmich said to Harry Kane prior to match-winning goal against Celtic | OneFootball

A crucial set-piece goal led Bayern Munich to victory in the opening leg of the 2024/25 Champions League playoff against on Wednesday night. The Bundesliga record champions can feel good about their prospects of progressing in the competition after escaping the fiery cauldron of Celtic’s Parkhead with a win.

A match with many storylines (a disallowed easy goal from former FCB academy man Nicolas Kühn and a late comeback push from the Glaswegians) ultimately boiled down to the 49th-minute match-winner; a skillful dead-ball co-production from Joshua Kimmich and Harry Kane.

Speaking to German broadcaster DAZN, Kimmich revealed that he and Kane had a chat about the scene at half-time. The pair reviewed the fact that they mutually decided to stick with a basic corner variant that hadn’t worked earlier.

Kane headed a Kimmich corner into the side netting from the far post in the 43rd minute, just two minutes prior to Michael Olise’s goal to make it 1-0 before the break. After the restart, Kimmich and Kane stuck with the plan.

“Harry came up to me at half-time and said, ‘Always hit the balls on [training pitch position] two. I’m relatively alone there.’,” Kimmich said. “Fortunately, they didn’t adjust and we were able to successfully score.“

Kimmich also spoke on Bayern’s chance to effectively put the title race to bed with a win over defending champions Bayer Leverkusen in the coming Saturday TopSpiel. The Bavarians have their boot on the necks of Xabi Alonso’s Werkself, but haven’t beaten them in their last five meetings.

After beating Leverkusen 3-0 in September 2022, Bayern have drawn against Die Werkself twice and lost twice in the league. The humiliating Pokal defeat in December – in which Kane was unable to participate due to injury – remained fresh in Kimmich’s mind.

“To be honest, we’ve had a lot of problems against Leverkusen in recent games,” Kimmich noted. “We’ve improved, but haven’t found a way to score. We have to do better.

“I think it’s going to be a cool game and I would definitely watch it as a fan,” Kimmich concluded.

GGFN | Peter Weis