Thomas Müller is stuck in a TV interview against BVB at club World Cup in the TV interview

Thomas Müller was perplexed, but reacted quick. “Are we in Dortmund now? Do we already have mental problems?” Said the Bayern routiner a little incredulously after the 0-1 of the German football champion in the last preliminary round of the club World Cup against Benfica Lisbon, which secured Portugal’s record champions in Group C in front of the Munich team.

After the defeat, Müller answered questions from the reporters on site. When asked about possible mental problems as the cause of the MAUE performance in the first half, he replied with the BVB comparison and had fun. And he said: “We are very lane about our mentality to win here.” However, coach Vincent Kompany had changed the starting line -up due to Charlotte’s extreme afternoon heat to seven positions.

The Munich tournament veterans Müller (35) and Manuel Neuer (39) are by no means unsettled to the round of 16 next Sunday (10 p.m. CEST/SAT.1. And DAZN) in Miami against Brazil’s top team Flamengo. “I know that such a co-round is always a game with the fire. But I am convinced that we are still here for some time,” said Müller. As a group first, one would have been exposed to climatic challenges in a duel with Chelsea FC in Charlotte.

“We then make the big games” Despite the first tournament defeat and a possible quarter-finals against Champions League winner Paris Saint-Germain, we also “very positive” into the second World Cup phase. “If we continue to play like in the second half, it will be a very good tournament,” he said. Now it goes into the KO games – “and these big games, we will then make them”.

From his long tournament experience, Müller also reminded of the shaky Algerian game “In our Glorgek WM victory” in Brazil in 2014 when one only struggled against the blatant outsider in the round of 16. With every tournament winner there are moments “where it gets tight and not everything runs optimally”.

Meanwhile, Kompany justified his major rotation in the starting eleven, the top forces such as Joshua Kimmich, Harry Kane and Michael Olise only complained in half of the Zwiete. With the substitutions, the Bayern game promptly got much better, only the possible goals failed to materialize.

The trainer spoke of “very logical decisions” in Charlotte. He wanted to avoid “the players are all dead because they played here in the heat for 90 minutes”. His goal was to “create the best possible prerequisites for the next game” against Flamengo in order to win the tournament in the end. “And I will agree with a positive result.”