Thomas Müller, Bayern Munich’s Rising-Star

“Es müllert wieder!” — This famous slo­gan is only known by older ger­man foot­ball fans, espe­cially for those in West­ern Ger­many. It´s a trib­ute to the best Ger­man striker ever named Gerd Müller. Müller played fif­teen years for the Bavar­ian top-club FC Bay­ern Munich and is hold­ing sev­eral scor­ing records. He scored 68 goals in 65 games for the Ger­man national-team and 365 goals in 427 Bundesliga-games.

This remark­able fig­ures show the extra­or­di­nary skills and abil­ity of scor­ing goals. Every sup­porter of Bay­ern Munich talks very pathet­i­cally about this incom­pa­ra­ble tal­ent, sure that such a kind of player will only appears a few times in a century.

But this sum­mer the fans maybe will get the oppor­tu­nity to expe­ri­ence the birth of Müller´s appro­pri­ate suc­ces­sor. It´s the twenty year old home-grown tal­ent Thomas Müller, who is try­ing to fol­low into the foot­steps of Gerd Müller. There is no rela­tion­ship between the two strik­ers, but they have sev­eral things in common.

Thomas Müller started his pro­fes­sional career last sea­son with sev­eral short appear­ances under the for­mer Bay­ern Munich man­ager Jür­gen Klins­mann. This sea­son the new dutch man­ager Luis van Gaal gave Müller the oppor­tu­nity to play instead of the injured top-strikers Miroslav Klose and Luca Toni. Müller took the chance and scored two goals in the 5–1 blow against Borus­sia Dort­mund and a few days later he scored a double-score at his champions-League debut against Mac­cabi Haifa.

His skills and his scoring-ability are very rem­i­nis­cent of Gerd Müller´s style. His kick­ing skills, his moves in the penalty-area are very sim­i­lar to the Bavar­ian striker icon. In oppo­si­tion to Gerd, Thomas Müller has the abil­ity to occupy sev­eral posi­tions in the offen­sive mid­field because of his great vision.

Thomas Müller is now one of the new fan favourites in the Allianz Arena and he dis­missed the for­mer top-strikers like Luca Toni to the reserve-squad. A few days ago Joachim Löw, man­ager of the ger­man national-team, said to a radio announcer, that he is exited about the up-and-coming tal­ent Thomas Müller and that he con­sid­ers nom­i­nat­ing Müller for the upcom­ing world cup in south-africa.

Thomas Müller is on the best way to achieve iconic sta­tus through­out the Ger­man football-scene. It looks like that the fans will farm the famous slo­gan in the future out to either Müllers.