Being Muller is much more than Bavarian, of course, but it’s helping, it’s evident when you’re doing the FCB fan club rounds in the run-up to Christmas. Born in Weilheim, young Thomas grew up in the small village of Pehl, about 50 km from Munich. He joined Bayern at the age of 10 in the summer of 2000 and temporarily rose through the club’s ranks. He had an escape season with the Under-19 in 2007/08, scoring 18 goals in 26 games, and attracting the attention of then-head coach Jurgen Klinsmann.
“I didn’t pick up the phone at first,” Muller admitted, when the 1990 FIFA World Cup winner called to announce his promotion to the first team. “But when I heard my voicemail later, it was Jurgen Klinsmann. “
He made his Bundesliga deyet one month before his 19th birthday, in recent years replacing Miroslav Klose, who opposed Hamburg on opening day in 2008/09. More than a decade later, he made 500 senior category appearances with the club, but at the time, no hint of the remarkable career path that awaited him.
See: Muller in The Colors of Bayern from a Young
After this fleeting appearance against HSV, he spent the rest of the season with the affiliate, scoring 15 impressive goals in 3rd place. He was called up to the first team in the final stages of the campaign, making three more replacement matches, however it was not until 2009/10 that he began making a call for himself.
Klinsmann left Bayern and was replaced through Louis van Gaal, who without delay recognized Muller’s immense perspective. Incredibly, for someone with only 28 minutes of high-level football in their credits, Muller has played in each and every game of the season, rewarding Van Gaal’s Religion with thirteen goals and 10 assists when Bayern scored a double in the Bundesliga and DFB Cup.
“Even if Franck Ribéry and Arjen Robben are available, he will continue to play on my team,” Van Gaal said at the time. To date, it attributes to the Dutch strata a role in its development.
“He threw me in the back,” Bayern’s striker told Goal in 2016. “I made my deyet before he arrived, but then he continually leaned on me. For us players, it’s hard to communicate about coaches while we’re still active. “. But I would say my greatest influence is Louis van Gaal, because I am in the most productive age to be influenced. “
Voted Germany’s young player of the year and included in the Bundesliga season team, he is in a position to assume his new global status. He made only his third appearance for Die Mannschaft in the first match of the 2010 FIFA World Cup against Australia, scoring his first foreign goal and scoring another for Lukas Podolski in a 4-0 win.
Two more purposes and one hand came here in England’s last expulsion, followed by the opening of the quarter-finals against Argentina, which agonizingly missed the semi-final defeat to Spain by sanction, but managed here back to score its fifth purpose of the tournament when Germany took Uruguay to third place. At just 20 years old, he has returned from South Africa with the Golden Boot and a developing reputation as one of the new world football prodigies on the field.
After extending his contract with Bayern until 2015, he continued to thrive, scoring 21 goals and 28 assists over the next two seasons, but good luck began to be difficult for the record champions to achieve. was – Borussia Dortmund claiming back-to-back titles – also struggled to identify their supremacy on the continent.
In May 2012, the decor was perfectly planted. Bayern hosted Chelsea at the Allianz Arena for the UEFA Champions League final, seeking to erase a 2-0 loss to Inter Milan in the centerpiece in 2010. In the 83rd minute, Muller broke the impasse with a header. point blank, a purpose. That seemed safe to secure Bayern their fifth European crown – and they scored through a Bavarian, no less. But it wasn’t like that – Didier Drogba leveled a few minutes later, and the English still prevailed on penalties.
Many observers described the defeat as worse than the 1999 Champions League final, when Manchester United scored two goals in extra time to win the Bayern trophy, but from the ashes of their terrible home defeat, Jupp Heynckes’ team rose as a phoenix. to make the most of a successful crusade of any team in the history of German football in 2012/13, which culminated in a long-awaited historic Bundesliga hat-trick, DFB Cup and Champions League.
“We have to win,” Muller warned of the first all-German final that opposed Dortmund at Wembley. “If you lose the last three in four seasons, they’ll call you chokers. We may make a lot of money in London, but you may lose a lot too. “
Fortunately for Bayern, they won – and it was Robben who had the honour of scoring the decisive goal at Wembley, finished the European crusade as Bayern’s most sensible goalscorer with 8 purposes – adding 3 in the 7-0 aggregate win over Barcelona. -last. The so-called Raumdeuter also contributed thirteen purposes and thirteen to give a hand in the Bundesliga, as well as a purpose and a hand in the final win of the DFB Cup 3-2 over Stuttgart.
Raumdeuter – or “area interpreter” – a term Muller himself coined in a desirable interview in 2011 with the S-Deutsche Zeitung. How else do you describe a player before such an unrthodox and unwise player?Although he possesses few of the world-leading skills of his class (dribbling, long-range shooting, tricky footwork) the reading of the game is unmatched, and his ability to lose the area wallet for himself and his teammates is at the center of his game. the right position at the right time, with or without a ball.
Look: ‘The Space Interpreter’ at its best
“I sense that many other people have difficulty placing me as a player,” he once told The Observer. “They say, “Impossible, how did you do that?” But at some point, they might have started thinking, “Oh, he’s pretty smart after all!”
Muller’s position has been a source of curious debate for many years, but the main thing is that when he plays, the goals come. In his 10 full seasons in the Bundesliga, the local has doubled the numbers six times in terms of goals and 8 in terms of assists. In total, it has 116 goals and 140 assists in 343 high-level appearances and, surprisingly, Bayern have lost one of the 93 league games in which they have discovered the bottom of the network.
“Thomas has scored goals, in education and in games,” recalled legendary young coach Herguyn Gerland, the guy who advised Muller on Klinsguyn, and who is now in the academy’s index for Bayern’s new image. position to play more than 90 minutes regularly, but scored goals!And that’s the most important thing in football. “
So how could Muller, necessarily the maximum padding with the ball on his feet, have compatibility with pep Guardiola’s ownership formula, which arrived in Bavaria at the start of the 2013/14 season?All right, as it turned out.
Demonstrating his tactical flexibility, Muller eventually retired to the right flank, where he was basically used through Heynckes in the triple season, but continued to score goals regularly, scoring thirteen and 11 while Bayern defended their league title.
In the summer of 2014 I would see Muller register in the inner circle of players who have won the Bundesliga, the Champions League and the FIFA World Cup: sign up to form former Bayern legends such as his playboy Gerd Muller, Franz Beckenbauer and recently retired president Uli. Hoene. Germany traveled to Brazil as a favorite for the tournament, and expectations were much higher around Muller, as the winner of the 2010 Golden Boot.
He repeated his functionality for South Africa for five more purposes, adding a hat-trick in the first game against Portugal and the first game in host Brazil’s 7–1 takedown in the semi-finals. Teammate Mario Gotze would possibly have set the goal of victory in the last opposition to Argentina, however, Muller’s contribution to the world champions was identified by completing fifth place in this year’s FIFA Ballon d’Or vote.
“Muller is an herbal talent,” german coach Joachim Lew said. “He’s been playing brilliantly since 2010. I’ve had my feet on the court and I can face praise or criticism, good luck or failure, more than anyone. I never doubted” him, and of course he likes goals. “
He continued to convert his 2014/15 national coach, where he can now count on former Dortmund forwarder Robert Lewandowski as a contrast in the attack. Whether widely used or more central, it prospered under Guardiola, proceeding to ghost between lines and exploitation area in an inimitable way.
He enjoyed his peak prolific season to date in 2015/16. Playing deeper and to Lewandowski’s forehand in a 4-2-3-1, Muller has scored no less than 20 bundesliga goals and 32 in all competitions. The striker performed even better, scoring 42 times, either of which contributed 74 goals for the Bundesliga and Bayern’s DFB Cup in doubles.
Bayern underwent a management replacement in 2016/17, with Carlo Ancelotti replacing Guardiola, but the ever-present Muller continued to play a key role in the attack, once his chameleon ability to adapt to other systems and coaches reappeared. he returned to a more altruistic role, scoring only five bundesliga goals and evoking 16 assists.
“It’s because he’s a wonderful striker with unrthodox skills,” Ancelotti told ESPN. “We expect the big strikers to be exceptional in terms of athletics, strategy or creativity. Instead, his strength is tactical, in this ability to read the game. “and fill the right area at the right time. “
While Ancelotti was above all effusive in his praise, the relationship between Italian and costumes began to worsen over time. When he was thrown off the bench against Werder Bremen at the start of 2017/18, he did not hesitate to express his displeasure.
“Obviously, my qualities are not entirely sought after,” he observed conspicuously, “I don’t know what the coach expects of me. “
Ancelotti retired in September 2017 after a Champions League defeat to Paris Saint-Germain. Heynckes returned for a fourth term to the helm, and suddenly Moller began to accelerate again. to Cologne in Round 16, before winning the winner against Stuttgart 3 days later. He also scored a delicious goal in the last DFB Cup win over Dortmund, and made history with a double and a hand against Werder Bremen in Round 19, scoring a hundred Bundesliga purposes.
“It’s a big step, but it’s only temporary. I think I still have some goals,” he joked after a 4-2 win.
The long run looks brilliant for Muller, who, under Heynckes and then Niko Kovac, has won eight Bundesliga titles with the Bavarian giants. At just 30 years old, a club boy has already matched Bayern greats Mehmet Scholl, Oliver. Kahn, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm, and is one less than Franck Ribéry’s all-time record of nine national crowns.
“It would be a lie if I said I don’t need to break the record,” He once admitted Sport Bild.
As things are, I wouldn’t bet against Muller to have in his hands a ninth and even tenth Meisterschale. Since joining the most sensible team in 2009/10, he has left it slightly, missing only 26 Bundesliga games in 10 full seasons. While other academy graduates such as Lahm and Toni Kroos were sent to lend their teeth, or even sold, in the case of Mats Hummels, Muller has stayed there, which has allowed him to spend Bayern’s 500 competitive appearances in 2020. No member of the current team has played more games.
Look: Muller’s five goals for Bayern!
“No one could have predicted his career,” Gerland told Bayern’s official website. “But I had the right club and coach at the right time. And then he took advantage of his chance and did very well. “
These performances have made Muller one of Bayern’s costume leaders, and it’s no wonder seeing him dressed in the captain’s armband in the absence of the injured Manuel Neuer in recent years. As his brilliant career continues, he’s not. It is known how many pages of football history will continue to write the centenary German alien.
Winner of the Bundesliga, DFB Cup, UEFA Champions League, FIFA World Cup and Golden Boot, Thomas Moller is a world-class talent, in fact exclusive, and is Bayern to the core.
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