Thomas Müller: The team’s first servant leaves

To understand what Thomas Müller is doing right, it helps to take a look at Manuel Neuer, who is currently doing a lot of things wrong.

After the 1:2 defeat against Spain in the European Championship quarter-finals, Neuer said that he would take his time deciding whether to continue his career in the national team. This could take “half a year or longer”. Marc-André ter Stegen, 32, who has been waiting half a life as a goalkeeper to become number one, must not only have understood this as a threat. The DFB will also be disturbed by the vague words, because the next international matches are already in September. By then it must be clear who will be in goal.

Neuer, 38 years old, 124 international matches, is currently demonstrating how one can damage his late achievements as a footballer. Leaving everything vague, even if it is to the detriment of others – Neuer has long since ceased to be so indispensable that he could afford this pose.

He does it anyway.

The Neuer case has to be described in such detail because it is the negative side of Thomas Müller’s departure. Everything that Neuer is currently messing up, Müller is succeeding at.

He was only a substitute at the European Championships, but leaves as a hero

This Monday he announced his retirement from the national team, after 14 years, 131 games and eight tournaments for the DFB. Even though Müller was only a substitute at the last European Championship, he is leaving as a hero.

He leaves as a big man because he had recently made himself small. He, the 2014 world champion, was his team’s first servant. Müller brought everyone together, the old and the young, the quiet and the loud, the highly gifted and the less talented, and he did this in an inconspicuous way that many would not have thought him capable of.

For years, Müller had only been on Grell and Laut. That was also why he was nicknamed “Radio Müller” – he was always on the air, no game, no training session that he didn’t write the lyrics for. And when the audience laughed at his jokes, he felt obliged to come up with the next gag, even if he didn’t know of a good one at the time.

Thomas Müller’s miraculous transformation

The fact that Thomas Müller can also take a back seat and work in the background, even though he loves being on the big stage, is one of the most amazing stories of this European Championship. Müller has had one of the best tournaments of his career in recent weeks – but outside on the bench and in the camp in Herzogenaurach. He did not hold a press conference, did not give a long interview, and did not appear on television. He, the Foreign Minister, only worked internally.

It was Julian Nagelsmann who recognized Müller’s versatility early on. Since taking office last autumn, Nagelsmann has repeatedly called him up, even though there were stronger players in the attacking midfield. The national coach did not trust other veterans like Mats Hummels or Leon Goretzka to do this: to push aside the pain of no longer being part of the first eleven and still love this team in which there is no longer any room for themselves.

And this has often gone wrong in the history of the German national team when an ageing giant had to find a new role. Just remember Oliver Kahn at the 2006 World Cup, the last major tournament in Germany. When Kahn sat down on the bench as if in slow motion, you could almost hear it breaking from the sheer gravitas and weight of history that Kahn unloaded there. He moved angularly, deliberately awkwardly; the moon seemed to be more familiar to him than the bench. Kahn didn’t have a bad word to say about Jens Lehmann, who played in his place – but he didn’t have a good one either. He sat through the World Cup chewing gum. After that, it was over.

He was the glue that tied up the loose ends in the team

You have to take all of this into account when it comes to appreciating Thomas Müller’s performance. The fact that a player of his caliber is redefining himself in his mid-30s is extraordinary.

Manuel Neuer is currently asking himself what is best for him. Whether he wants to stay on for another year or not; he is weighing it up over weeks, if not months. Before the European Championship, Thomas Müller asked himself what is best for the team. How he can be the glue for this team that was only nominated in March and had so many loose ends.

It’s a nice twist that Müller – when he played at the European Championships – took on a similar role on the pitch as he did off it. He chose his own tasks there. Müller swept after the young Musiala, Wirtz and Havertz, who had pushed him out of the starting eleven. He collected their lost balls, he tried to organize their game, he had an eye for what was needed to let someone else shine.

When it was recently said that the mood in the national team had never been better in the past 20 years than at this European Championship, Müller could take this as a compliment.

Tears after the Spain game, his last

Perhaps after the Spain game he realized which team he was leaving. He stood there on the grass of the Stuttgart stadium with tear-filled eyes, he, the man of words, stammered that “realistically speaking” it was possible “that this was my last international match”. Müller had never been seen so upset, not even after the completely botched 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

But now, after a few days of distance, the sadness has left him. Müller has realised that this team, which is so much his, will have a good future even without him. Müller shaped it. He made sure that it grew at the European Championships, even surpassing itself at times.

Müller knows his work is done. He can go.