Bundesliga: “Full throttle” Bayern with Neuer and Müller – “Extremely important”

The umpteenth autumn championship is at best a nice sideshow for Bayern legends Thomas Müller and Manuel Neuer. The presumed Musiala replacement Müller and the captain, who was called up again for the first time after a broken rib, want to demonstrate their never-ending hunger for the title right at the start of the new year. Your last as a professional footballer?

“Thomas is extremely important because he has experienced everything with this club. He knows how this club works from A to Z and therefore it is an extreme help for all of us to have a figure like Manuel Neuer in our ranks have,” said sports director Max Eberl before the Bundesliga away game on Saturday (6.30 p.m./Sky) at his other favorite club, Borussia Mönchengladbach.

Neuer is back for the first time after the red premiere

Captain Neuer is back in goal for the league leaders after a broken rib that he suffered with the first red card of his career in the DFB Cup against Bayer Leverkusen at the beginning of December. “It’s good luck and bad luck at the same time,” said coach Vincent Kompany. Lucky that Neuer is fit again. It’s unfortunate that his good representative Daniel Peretz will be out for a few weeks after bruising his kidney during training. “It’s not too bad. We hope he can be back at the end of the month, early next month,” Kompany said.

Earlier, perhaps even on Wednesday against Hoffenheim, offensive star Jamal Musiala, who was missing in Mönchengladbach due to illness, will be back. The dangerous national player, like top scorer Harry Kane, is in the category that he cannot be replaced “one-to-one,” said Kompany. “But that doesn’t mean we have another plan.”

“If I say that Müller is a backup…”

Musiala’s first backup is Müller, who also replaced the injured Kane at the end of last year. “If I say here that Thomas Müller is backup…” Kompany laughed. Deserved professionals like Müller and Neuer “are always important. When he plays, he is important. When he doesn’t play, he is also important. You earn this role over the years.”

Müller, now 35, has been at FC Bayern for almost a quarter of a century. Like that of captain Neuer (38), his contract expires in the summer of this year. In the case of Neuer, the contract extension is reportedly a formality. Müller had recently been open. But in his case too there is a lot to be said for a contract extension. Both 2014 world champions are among the top earners.

What influence does the final have at home?

“If Thomas says he wants to continue, then we will look deeply into each other’s eyes, look at the squad and then we will move on,” Eberl. “If he maybe says, I don’t feel like it anymore, okay, then things will continue for us and then we have to see how we can get Thomas to help us in another way.”

His calculations could possibly influence the Champions League final on May 31st in Munich. Wouldn’t a career end as a premier class triumph with a lap of honor at the Club World Cup be the best thing for highly decorated series champions like Neuer and Müller?

Eberl: Contract discussions must not interfere with the title fight

But that is still a long way away. First of all, in crisp January, we will work on the basis for the title projects with three English weeks one after the other. “It’s a mentality story. From the first training session it’s all about going full throttle and not taking a step back,” said Kompany, whose team won the only test 6-0 against Red Bull Salzburg. “We also showed against Salzburg that we can do this Take your mentality with you into the new year.”

Contract talks should not disrupt the title plans of the Munich team, who were eliminated in the cup, in the Bundesliga and Champions League. “What we have all agreed on, and that is also the players’ goal: We don’t want this to extend into the important time in the second half of the season and there will only be speculation,” said Eberl. At some point decisions would have to be made.