National team and Bayern: Müller continues to play, but not always – sport

The chairs at the Al Aziziyah Boutique Hotel gleam in gold, like so much in Qatar. That’s a throne, said Julian Nagelsmann before he sat down for the press conference at FC Bayern’s training camp at the weekend. Thomas Müller took his place the next day without comment.

Müller has known Qatar for a long time, he often visited, so a shiny gold chair shouldn’t particularly impress him anymore. And he had no intention of attaching much importance to the occasion on Monday afternoon. He grinned cheerfully and waited for the questions. Of course he knew what it would be about.

When he last gave an interview in front of a camera in Qatar, Germany had just been eliminated from the World Cup after three group games. Müller looked directly into the lens and spoke to the ARD viewers. “If that was my last game, then I would like to say a few words to the German football fans. It was a great pleasure, folks,” he said. It sounded like resignation.

“I was very emotional after the game,” said Müller now, five and a half weeks later, just a few hundred meters from the stadium where Germany had lost the decisive game against Japan 1-2. He wasn’t emotional this time. He said: “As long as I’m a professional footballer, I will always be available in the national team if I’m needed.” He said: “The when, the if and the how – of course the national coach has to decide that.”

Müller continues to play football for Germany, perhaps also at the home European Championship next year (“If I deliver a top performance in spring 2024 – why not?”), provided that Hansi Flick nominates him – so that was the news content of his appearance, the first of a German national player after the World Cup. So far, so unspectacular, you could say. The meaning came from the expectation that he might have been able to announce something else. He also said: “If I don’t get nominated, even though I would like to, I can handle that.”

It is a special season that Müller is experiencing at the age of 33. Ever since he made his debut for the national team in 2010, what Bayern coach Louis van Gaal said at the time: “Müller always plays.” After that, a few coaches made a daring attempt to contradict van Gaal; Niko Kovac, for example, or Joachim Löw, when he announced on a surprise visit to Munich in 2019 that he would no longer nominate Müller, Mats Hummels and Jérôme Boateng. But Müller always came back all the better, becoming the world’s outstanding footballer in empty stadiums due to the pandemic, at least nobody could be heard so clearly, his value was never so obvious as an organizer on the pitch. And despite his advancing age, a few months ago nobody would have seriously questioned his regular place in the national team and at FC Bayern.

Müller competes with Musiala and Choupo-Moting for a place in the Bayern team

But this season started with Bayern Munich’s Jamal Musiala, who shone in Müller’s favorite position in attacking midfield. He no longer just needs to be called Germany’s best talent, but with a few good arguments could be called Germany’s best footballer. Although Müller played, he did not manage as much as usual: two goals and three assists in eight Bundesliga games.

The season continued with Müller getting injured and being absent for as long as almost never before in his career. He missed a total of seven Bundesliga games in a row, sometimes because he was ill, but mostly with undefined hip problems.

Then came the World Cup, Müller played three times and was substituted three times. He didn’t want to spend too much time analyzing the tournament on Monday, he didn’t criticize the German team much and didn’t want to go into detail. He once said: “We all know we didn’t play disastrous football, but we brought home a disastrous result.”

He’s fit again now, he says, “his back’s fine”. But he admitted that he now spends more time on the training ground to stay fit. He said it his way. He doesn’t just go to the physiotherapist “to tell the joke of the week”.

Nagelsmann has already been asked in Qatar whether and if so where Müller will play again if the Bundesliga continues in two weeks, and he did not answer with van Gaal. “Thomas is an important player for Bayern, an important player for me,” said the Bayern coach. “He has extraordinary abilities, especially when it comes to assists, which also includes one or the other unconventional action in the opponent’s penalty area.”

Nagelsmann named the positions in the offensive center, in midfield and up front as options. “It will be one of the positions”, probably sometimes this and sometimes that. But either Müller would then have to oust Musiala or Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting at the top, who scored a series of goals in Müller’s absence and apparently single-handedly solved the offensive problems for a short time after Robert Lewandowski left in the summer.

On Monday, Müller uncomplainingly confirmed that things worked quite well at Bayern without him. “Hopefully” things would work out well for him again, he said. But he didn’t sound doubtful.

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