Ask his former trainers Louis van Gaal, Pep Guardiola or Carlo Ancelotti about the qualities of 35-year-old Bayern Munich striker Thomas Müller, and you won’t hear them about a refined technique, flashy false movements or devastating shot. With his thin legs, long arms and confused hairstyle, Müller is certainly not a prototype top athlete from modern football, he regularly found.
Yet he is one of the most successful German football players ever and an icon of the club. Müller already played a record number of 742 games for Bayern, in which he scored 247 goals. The attacker Annex midfielder-his position has always remained somewhat elusive-won 32 prizes with the southern German club and became the personification of the Bavarian dominance in the Bundesliga. Müller and Bayern seemed married.
But after 25 years (including his years in the youth academy), the marriage almost comes to an end. For days the news had been slumbering, on Saturday Müller himself announced that the current season at Bayern will be his last. “It wasn’t my choice,” he wrote an Instagram message. The club wants to rejuvenate.
Van Gaal ‘greatest influence’
Müller, raised in the Bavarian hamlet of Pähl, joined Bayern in the summer of 2000. Jürgen Klinsmann is a coach when he makes his debut in 2008, but Müller experiences his big breakthrough under Louis van Gaal. He gives him almost unconditional trust. Müller regularly tells how much he from Van Gaal, “The greatest influence [in zijn loopbaan]”Learned. As in 2024, after a match against Freiburg, when he explained to scored thanks to the ‘Van Bastenloop’ – a way to run free that Van Gaal had taught him.
At Bayern, after Van Gaals dismissal, he knows how to effortlessly adapt to the playing style of almost every coach, from Pep Guardiola to Jupp Heynckes. What makes him so good? Müller described itself in 2011 when Raumdeuteror space manager. Müller reads the game like no other, is always moving and keeps it simple. “It’s about instinct,” he said.
Football term, which has since been established in Germany, covers the load perfectly, says Guardiola. “He is smart and unpredictable and is always in the right place,” he said on the Bayern website in 2024. But the best thing about Müller? “He Cheers whole modest. Nowadays, football players prefer to cheer themselves. Not Thomas, he always wants to hug his teammates. ”
This lack of star allures makes him popular in Germany, even with football fans who are not for Bayern. When he appears in front of the camera in 2014 after the World Cup match against England, he asks if he can give greetings to his grandfather and grandmother. He then waves in the camera like a happy schoolboy.
Radio Müller
Although down-to-earth And Jovial, the Bayern-Vedette also has a big winner’s mentality. He never officially becomes the regular leader, but Müller grows into one of the leaders of the team. Radio Müller, his teammates also call him, because of his continuous communication with teammates, but also with opponents and referees. The Bayern media team even makes it in the Lockdown period a compilation of his cries in the empty stadiums.
Yet in recent years, Müller has often been the subject of doubt in lesser periods of Bayern. Is it not even time to say goodbye to the old guard? And once Müller seems to want to leave himself, in 2018, but the love for Bayern appears to be more important than the Millions offer from Manchester United.
Last week said Van Gaal That Müller, if he decides to leave, “deserves a big farewell.” Despite the now forced departure, love does not seem cooled. Müller: “It’s like my game. It was not always characterized by perfection,” he says on Instagram. “But after a bad pass, it is important to recover the team spirit. We have done this by now.”