'Kimmich is insane, it annoys me how good he is'

Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke has named Joshua Kimmich as the one player he would most like to sign from Bayern Munich ahead of this weekend’s ‘Klassiker’ clash, hailing the German’s development as “insane”.

Dortmund have long strived to be Bayern’s main rivals in the Bundesliga, highlighted by the fact that both sides go into Saturday’s showpiece level on points at the top of the table.

The Westfalenstadion outfit have found themselves hamstrung on several occasions by the financial might boasted by the Bavarians, however, with a multitude of BVB players having been poached by Bayern over the years.

Indeed, Watzke’s opposite number, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, feels that Bayern have made mistakes in the past in the way they’ve handled their transfer business, but claims the relationship between the two sides has improved in recent years.

“We have now developed such a weather-resistant relationship that we would speak to each other beforehand,” Rummenigge told Sport Bild. “We had the case of Mats Hummels, who came back to Munich but is now playing for Dortmund again.

“We solved this in a serious manner, among men. The way we got Mario Gotze in 2013 caused great criticism from BVB at the time. In retrospect, we understand that.”

And while Dortmund’s own work in the market of late has been widely praised after the signings of Jadon Sancho, Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham, among others, signing a top talent from Bayern would be an immensely difficult task to pull off.

Watzke is well aware of such difficulties, stating that luring any of the German champions’ players away from the Allianz Arena would be monumentally hard – even before the subject of money is broached.

“That is pure fantasy, even from a purely economic point of view,” the CEO said when asked which Bayern player he would most like to sign. “But who I like the most over the last few years is Joshua Kimmich.

“It always annoys me because he is just so good and he always scores against us. And the way he does it… it’s amazing – his development has been insane. The boy really impresses me.”

Switching the focus back to Dortmund’s own stars who could feature against the Bavarians, however, Watzke added: “But in the past few months we’ve added out own talented, hungry guys: Haaland, [Emre] Can, Bellingham…”