Thomas Mueller never shied away from a riposte. Even when the person at the other end was Diego Maradona. An incident that has taken a mythical high over time, epitomizes Mueller’s unforgiving attitude as a player and a person. Barely 20 and taking baby steps in the international arena, Mueller was asked to share the stage with Diego Maradona, who was helming Argentina, before a friendly in March 2010. Maradona refused to go ahead with the press meet, apparently feeling slighted at the idea of sharing dais with a ‘ball boy’.
Three months down the line in windy Cape Town, Mueller orchestrated one of Argentina’s heaviest defeats in the World Cup. He sparked the 4-0 rout with a third minute goal, heading home Bastian Schweinsteiger’s freekick. Later he said, “As for Maradona, well this is special for me. I don’t think that he thinks I am a ball boy anymore.”
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Thus, ‘Radio Mueller’ announced his arrival to the world. In an exclusive interview with TOI , Mueller recalled those heady days of 2010. “The successful journey of 2014 actually started in 2010. We were a bunch of young players whose shoulders were yet to be burdened with high expectations.”
Joachim Loew put together a team of ‘unknowns’ for the South Africa World Cup. They bowed out in the semifinals against eventual winners Spain. On the way they charted some prodigious performances, as they relegated Maradona’s Argentina to innocent bystanders. Lionel Messi walked away distraught. England too suffered at their hands as Mueller scored two and went on to win the Golden Boot with 5 goals and the FIFA best young player award. Der Mannschaft had found another ‘golden generation’.
The core of the national team played for Bayern Munich. “In the next four years, Bayern reached the Champions League final twice and won the title once. (Manuel) Neuer, Schweinsteiger, Lahm (Philipp) and I were together and as a group we got used to winning on the big stage. It helped us immensely during the World Cup in Reuters Brazil,” Mueller observed. “In every high-standard tournament, as in a World Cup, a team must survive certain moments to be the last one standing. It was not easy in Brazil. We became the first European team to win the World Cup in South America. The journey was great.”
Belo Horizonte was a historic stop in that expedition where Mueller triggered a chain reaction that needed some off-field assistance to halt. Did coach Loew ask the team at half-time to go slow as they were already 5-0 ahead against the hosts in the World Cup semifinal? Recounting that match at Estadio Mineiro, Mueller said, “He did not instruct us to go slow, but he instructed us to be respectful. The situation was crazy. You don’t expect to lead 5-0 when you play Brazil in a World Cup semifinal on Brazilian soil. The pressure on the Brazilian team was extremely high. So, it was very important to show respect to the people of Brazil and players of the Brazilian national team. And I think Joachim Loew did a great job with his advice.”
Who's that IPL player?Criticised for not being a fluent dribbler or blessed with blistering pace, Mueller once coined a phrase for himself, “an interpreter of space”. Having visited India with Bayern’s youth team, Mueller spent a lot of time with mentor and namesake Gerd Mueller. “First of all, I learnt how popular ‘Der Bomber’ was in the outside world. I remember how people kept chanting his name. He influenced me a lot, especially how to behave in and around the box.”
Their sense of space has tickled numerous comparisons and conversations as the younger Mueller says goodbye to Bayern Munich, his Bavarian address for 25 years.
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