It's Muller Time!

The Bayern Munich and Germany star may be in his prime, but not everyone was convinced he’d make it.

- Nick Bidwell

Married to a talented equestrienne and a lover of horses himself, Germany and Bayern Munich attacking thoroughbred Thomas Muller was not always as universally revered as he is today. In fact, a few years ago he came very close to not making the professional grade at all in Bavaria. 

In 2009, while playing for the club’s reserve side, a deal was almost done to sell him to Hoffenheim. And it’s fair to say that Bayern’s coach at the time, Jurgen Klinsmann, would not have shed a single tear if he had left.

 “Jurgen Klinsmann had made up his mind and told me there was no room for me in the first team,” recalled Muller in an interview with Kicker magazine in 2013.

“Hermann Gerland [Bayern’s long serving youth coach] came out against the idea, plus Hoffenheim did not offer enough. The transfer window closed and I stayed put.”

That was not the only time the wiry young local lad looked to be heading for the Bayern exit. In a decision that he is still trying to live down, FC Zurich president Ancillo Canepa ignored an opportunity to take Muller on loan, explaining: “We didn’t want to bring in a player we had only looked at on DVD. Anyway, we were more interested at the time in a more bustling type of striker.”

A few weeks later, in the 2009 close season, newly appointed Basle coach Thorsten Fink also made an attempt to take Muller to Switzerland, along with fellow Bayern second-stringer, defender Holger Badstuber.