When a player like Thomas Müller arrives, you have to build the team around him.
A World Cup champion and two-time UEFA Champions League winner who also helped Bayern Munich to 13 league titles and a bevy of other crowns, Müller joined the Vancouver Whitecaps this summer having more than proved himself at the highest level.
But rather than build around the 36-year-old, Whitecaps manager Jesper Sørensen had a different idea: Why not ask Müller to slot into what Vancouver already was doing? Instead of building the whole plane around Müller, the Germany great could be a passenger — though one in first class — on the trip the team was already charting.
It worked.
The Whitecaps are in the MLS Cup, preparing to face Inter Miami and their own crew of accomplished stars for the trophy on Saturday. It didn’t hurt that Müller is exactly the type of star who always has been motivated by making the team better. Arriving in Vancouver, Müller knew he was coming to a team that had made the final of the Concacaf Champions Cup just months earlier and was contending for the best record in the Western Conference.
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“Teamwork makes the dream work,” Müller wrote with a flexing emoji in the caption of his Instagram post that showed the Caps squad celebrating in “WESTERN CHAMPS” T-shirts. You get the feeling he really means it.
“I’m proud of my team,” he said in his postmatch interview after that 3-1 win over San Diego FC. “To be part of this journey is amazing. This group deserves so much.
“We have not only one player, we have so many strong guys, so many qualities,” he continued. “We have to bring it together, and we are growing, we’re learning. I’m very happy to be part of this, to bring my experience to the group.”
It is a group Sørensen arrived in the winter to take over, even as it was put up for sale and rumors the team would leave British Columbia were swirling. He found a team already anchored by MLS Defender of the Year Tristan Blackmon, with stingy goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka behind him. He engineered a breakout season for Sebastian Berhalter, a dead-ball wizard who continues to grow as a two-way midfielder, and for forward Brian White. Ryan Gauld, who along with White was heavily relied on to create chances, missed much of the year with injury but is now bringing his creativity to late-game situations as a reserve. Ali Ahmed allowed the Caps to become a team that looked to get the ball wide to move it forward, then finding White in the middle.
That’s not to say that Müller has not changed what the Caps are able to do, or that he is shy about lending a bit of gravitas to proceedings. During every match, Müller is constantly giving instructions, pointing and helping put teammates where he thinks they could be.
His pace racking up goals and assists has slowed. After scoring seven goals in seven regular-season matches (helped by a hat trick in a 7-0 stomping of the Philadelphia Union) and logging three assists, he has only one goal in Vancouver’s four playoff contests. Yet his influence has been clear, whether through progressing the ball, working back to help a defense beset by injuries or, yes, slipping in the pass that leads to a shot. Müller’s skills on the field and his presence as the team’s captain and leader both have helped push the team to its first-ever MLS Cup final.
“It’s not a secret that since Thomas came in, people lit up a little extra,” Sørensen said after that 7-0 win in September. “Even though we’ve been good throughout the season, that’s also sparked a little energy in everybody. It’s about seeing if we can really ride that energy and momentum, but you have to do it on the pitch when you’re playing.”
Sørensen took Müller off after an hour of play in the Western Conference final as the veteran deals with muscular knocks that have limited him. Müller hopes to be ready for 90 minutes — or potentially more — in the final showdown, a game he emphasized is “not about Messi against Thomas Müller, it’s Miami against the Whitecaps.”
Then again, it is the German’s face next to the Argentine’s in the pre-match posters, the social media graphics and the minds of the many casual soccer fans who will tune in Saturday. Two legends who have battled wearing their national team shirts, wearing the crests of the clubs they became identified with.
Now, it’s a new chapter of the individual rivalry. The difference?
“Maybe they rely a little bit more on him than we do on me because we are such a good group,” Müller told reporters Saturday. “You know what I mean?”
Fans watching the Caps will understand, seeing a player perfectly willing to take on any role. It might be a choice that allows Müller to add another trophy to his already overflowing case.
