Thomas Müller - the most underrated player in the league?
Created: 08/12/2022, 14:31
By: Caroline Metz
Is Thomas Müller underestimated?
© Imago / Buzzi
The list of Thomas Müller's successes is long - but he still attracts less attention at Bayern than Mané, Lewandowski and Co. Is his role as interpreter of space underestimated?
Munich – Thomas Müller has an impressive record: 10 Bundesliga titles in a row with FC Bayern Munich, eleven in total.
Six DFB Cup victories and eight DFL Supercup victories.
He won the Champions League twice and the UEFA Super Cup twice.
And in 2014 the culmination of every footballer's career: Müller became world champion with the German team.
But despite all this success, the player Müller often goes under the radar.
His name rarely comes up when discussing the best players in the world.
Müller describes himself as a space interpreter – the term even made it into the simulation game “Football Manager” and into English vocabulary.
In principle, a space interpreter can play any role in the last third of the space, depending on the game situation.
In a match, Müller relies more on his head than, for example, high speed or special dribbling skills.
This strategy follows a certain logic, because the 32-year-old has to compensate for his technical and physical deficiencies with his style of play.
Instead, he is an expert in tactics, positioning and spaces.
He is always "looking for the optimal position between the lines," Müller told
The Guardian
.
"My game is based on this quest."
Thomas Müller has everything in view on the pitch
Raumdeuter Müller is even more busy scanning his surroundings during the game than his colleagues from the Bayern squad, as
totalfootballanalysis.com
notes.
If you watch the Bayern player on the pitch, you can see that he's constantly looking around.
He is constantly busy looking for free spaces.
And very successfully, after all, he provided the most assists in the Bundesliga last season.
Good teamwork also seems to be building with the new Bayern star Sadio Mané.
Müller delivers perfect templates from the half-spaces
The half-spaces play an important role in Müller's game.
There he can easily slip through the opposing team's defenses.
Müller fired eight of his successful assists from half-spaces last season.
The half-spaces leave many avenues open, so the attacker there is difficult for the defense to read - and Müller knows how to capitalize on this.
He is particularly good at keeping track of open spaces, his opponents and his teammates - and therefore often makes the right decisions on the pass.
Müller's role is quite demanding, because he must have a good understanding of tactics, play structure and good instincts.
In addition, he not only provides assists, he also scores goals himself - after all, eight in the last season.
Here, too, his ability to anticipate naturally helps him.
Müller often recognizes situations better and earlier than the other players on the pitch.
Ideally, he is then in the right place at the right time to kick the ball into the goal.
Thomas Müller - the right mix of striker and midfielder
Müller combines the strengths of a midfielder and a striker in an almost perfect way.
No wonder that despite the fuss about top transfers and star strikers, some correctly recognize and classify his qualities.
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge sees the 32-year-old on the way to becoming the next top scorer in the Bundesliga.
And ex-teammate Philipp Lahm recently said in an interview that Müller and Neuner have become the leaders of FC Bayern.
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