“Of course we have high hopes,” Joshua Kimmich says as he finally allows himself to turn his gaze towards Germany’s opening World Cup game against Mexico in Moscow on Sunday. “Some of us were here last year in Russia and we have a very special feeling. When we won the Confederations Cup we had a very young team and it was a great experience to fight together and win together. We have most of our really big players back for the World Cup but we will show the same fighting spirit we had last summer.”

Kimmich is one of the best young players in Europe and, at 23, he is likely to illuminate the tournament in much the same way he did at his first major championship. At Euro 2016, he had just broken into the Germany squad but he played with such fluency and verve at right-back he was selected for the team of the tournament. Last year, in Russia, predictions that he will be a future national captain became even more persuasive.

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Germany’s manager, Joachim Löw, rested established players, including Manuel Neuer, Mats Hummels, Mesut Özil and Thomas Müller, who had all been part of the 2014 World Cup-winning side. “It was a brave decision,” Kimmich says, “because the Confederations Cup has become important. So we went to Russia with this very young squad. Even the guys that were older didn’t have much experience. Players like Sandro Wagner or Lars Stindl were new in our group. So for some of us it was a chance to show we can be leaders.”

“It’s something you grow into. I knew I was one of the players who had more international games than the others but that didn’t matter. The only important thing is your performance. If you perform well, then you get the respect of your team-mates. At this Confederations Cup I felt like a leader. It was good because when you are young and you play in the national team or with team-mates at Bayern Munich you are next to players bigger than you. They have achieved much more and it’s easy to let them lead. But at the Confederations Cup it was important I played a leader’s role.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Joshua Kimmich celebrates with Germany team-mates after winning the Confederations Cup in Russia last year. Photograph: Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts/Getty Images

Kimmich has always been highly versatile – as Pep Guardiola discovered when coaching him at Bayern – but he was exceptional in Russia. He played every minute of all five games and looked at ease at right-back, centre-back and wing-back as he allowed Löw to tinker with an experimental squad.

Yet it was during the final, against Chile in St Petersburg, when Kimmich’s authority and presence became even more evident. He stood up to a fiery Arturo Vidal, a Bayern team-mate, and refused to back down. They became embroiled in a heated exchange after Alexis Sánchez was brought down. Vidal and Kimmich butted heads before the Chilean pushed the German hard in the chest. Kimmich came back aggressively and spoke sharply to Vidal as other players piled in before the referee eventuallyseparated them.

Kimmich smiles at a bruising memory. “It was a tough game. Chile had a team with a lot of older guys. They knew each other for a long time and they played the last 10 years together and we were completely the opposite. We are young guys who didn’t know each other so well and it was not easy.

“Chile were much better than us but we tried to fight and we scored very luckily. So we were 1-0 up and the emotions came out. Arturo was fighting for his country and I’m fighting for my country and in that moment we were not Bayern teammates. But now the cup is in Germany and everything is good. Everything is OK between the two of us.”

Chile failed to qualify for the World Cup, surprisingly, but Germany are once again among the favourites to win the tournament. “It is very hard to win the World Cup twice in a row,” Kimmich says with wry understatement. “But we have a big belief we can do well again. Last year helped us believe even more. Back home in Germany, the Confederations Cup was not so high in the ranking for most people. But at the end I think everybody was watching our games and they also liked our team. They liked the fact we were young but full of fight. Now we are back for a much bigger tournament. The World Cup is much more special and it’s my first time. But I feel ready. Now we need to make even better memories.”