FC Bayern Munich: Thomas Müller on his near transfers under Klinsmann and Kovac
Thomas Müller Hoffenheim
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Thomas Müller not at Bayern? Actually, you can’t even imagine. But twice he was about to say goodbye to Munich.
Thomas Müller has shaped one of the most successful eras in club history at Bayern Munich. In 2009 he was about to move to TSG Hoffenheim. Why it didn’t happen, said Müller on Tuesday “Kickbase”-Podcast.
“Hoffenheim wanted me,” reports Thomas Müller about the winter transfer window for the 2008/09 season. At that time, TSG were at the top of the table – level on points with Bayern Munich.
“Jürgen Klinsmann couldn’t use me at the time and I was on the verge of a transfer,” explains Müller, who was mainly part of the second team at the time. With the professionals he only got eleven minutes of playing time on the first day of play against HSV (2-2).
In the autumn championship, Müller would have reinforced what was already the best offensive in the league at the time around Sejad Salihovic, Demba Ba, Chinedu Obasi and top striker Vedad Ibisevic (42 goals in total), who failed the entire second half of the season with a cruciate ligament tear. A transfer in winter 2009 failed from Hoffenheim’s side only because of the money: “In the end, however, it was also about a transfer – a few hundred thousand or so.”
Transfer fee for Thomas Müller? “Anything between 2 and 5 million”
In retrospect, however, he was not unhappy about the unsuccessful transfer: “It was then that Bayern gave Hoffenheim a sum – something between two and five million – and Hoffenheim found it too expensive.”
Hermann Gerland, who was still the amateurs’ coach at the time, also had a hand in Müller’s whereabouts. Müller: “In the end, Hermann Gerland fought hard to keep me going – in the interests of the club and in his own interests, because he wanted to keep me in the second team.”
Gerland himself described the story a little more emotionally in the podcast “Der Sechzehner” at the end of October: “Of course I stood up for Thomas Müller because he was already gone. He was already in Hoffenheim. So I said: ‘He’s staying here! ‘I had an argument. “
Jürgen Klinsmann had to vacate his place at Bayern in April of that year – Louis van Gaal came for the new season and, as a result, Müller’s shares in Munich rose. Almost exactly eleven years later he experienced a kind of deja vu under Niko Kovac: “In the winter of 2019/20 there was a change for me.”
Müller had “way too many bumblebees up his ass”
What happened? In the first half of 2019, Müller did not start from the start seven times in a row under his new coach Niko Kovac. For the national player it was a clear sign “that if the situation doesn’t change, I have to change something.”
At that time, Müller was not concerned with a temporary phase of weakness, “I am not signing a permanent place guarantee with my contract.” At that time, however, it was completely the wrong time to permanently accept the role of reservist: “At the time, I had way too many bumblebees up my ass.”
Bayern also learned from their star player that if the situation doesn’t change, he would like to change. Kovac was not a trigger. Müller: “I’ve never had a problem with the coach, the coach can make his decision as he wants.”
