Thomas Müller believes Jürgen Klopp has many of the qualities needed to lead Germany forward, but the former Bayern Munich star also thinks the national team needs more than just a tactical makeover.
Müller sees Klopp as an interesting blend of modern and old-school coaching, with experience managing superstar players in the Premier League while also developing young talent. However, he believes Klopp’s biggest challenge will be restoring something Germany has gradually lost: its identity, mentality,
and ability to make life miserable for opponents.
Müller also feels Germany has become too focused on playing attractive soccer without being decisive enough when it matters.
“I think he has a clear idea of which parts of the game he wants to focus on. He’s maybe a good mix between a modern coach and an old-school coach. He has experience in perhaps the biggest market in football—the Premier League. He has dealt with star players, but he has also brought young players through at his clubs. When he came to Liverpool, it was more of a project. They weren‘t spending huge amounts of money immediately. So I think he has some good skills for the job,” Müller said on a recent episode of the Late Run podcast. “But it’s also about expectations. German football is currently at a point where we’re struggling to find the next generation and get people really excited about watching us. It’s not only about how we play. It’s also about identity and mentality. The whole football world used to look at Germany and say: ‘We want to have that German mentality—to fight through things and be uncomfortable in every moment.’
“It seems like we have lost some of that. Our playing style can be too beautiful sometimes, but not decisive enough. We’re not cold enough in front of goal. We’re somewhere in between right now. I think Klopp can bring clarity, and clarity is always good because we have good players. But we don’t have players who can simply work everything out by themselves. We need a strong team. And a strong team doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone needs to be friends or have great personal connections. We need behaviors—simple behaviors that we can rely on. And then we have to play more uncomfortably for our opponents again.”
Germany does not necessarily need another collection of individual superstars. It needs a team that knows exactly what it stands for, trusts its structure, and is willing to do the uncomfortable things required to win.
Klopp has built his reputation on exactly that kind of football.
Perhaps Germany does not need to reinvent itself. Perhaps it just needs to remember what made everyone else so uncomfortable playing against it in the first place.
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