Bayern Munich great Thomas Müller, after a long and illustrious career with the Rekordmeister, moved to the MLS to play with the Vancouver Whitecaps. With the Canadian side, he has won two trophies so far — the 2025 MLS Western Conference Championship and the 2025 Canadian Championship. He also led the team to finish as runner-up in the MLS Cup and the CONCACAF Champions Cup. Needless to say, the Raumdeuter has settled in and made Canada his home.
He featured on a recent episode of the Late Run podcast,
talking about multiple points in his career. The host Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson asked him about his beginnings with football.
Creativity — a childhood trait
“I think it started with my cousins. They gave me a ball and it all started from there,” he said. He revealed that his grandfather was a huge Bayern fan too. He stated that he was not from a family with football professionals or coaches, but he had the chance to play against his cousins.
“My mum was the youngest of four children, so there was always a big age difference between me and the guys I played with,” he explained. While it may look like Müller was at a disadvantage in those circumstances, he reveals that this helped him build himself. Being the youngest meant he had to put up a fight, and find ways to play that did not demand physicality from him.
“I’ve heard a lot of stories about kids who are always the strongest and oldest. They don’t need to find solutions or use creativity to get better because everything is easy for them — they’re simply faster or stronger than everyone else. So I think being the youngest helped me on my way up,” he explained.
Beginnings with Bayern and Germany
Further talking about his early career with Bayern and Germany, he was asked about what it was like going from Bayern’s second team to playing in the World Cup for Germany in 2010.
“The craziness, if you want to call it that, started about nine months earlier, when I really had my breakthrough with the Bayern first team,” the Raumdeuter recounted.
“I had always been a good youth player. I had played for the German youth national teams and had a good season with Bayern’s second team in the third division,” he said. However, he had never anticipated that he would ever have the chance to start in the first team immediately.
To explain, he added that players like Toni Kroos or Philipp Lahm, whom he considers legends, also needed to go on loan before getting a fair shot at Bayern. “To start immediately at Bayern is extremely difficult because the quality is so high. Young players have to deliver,” he emphasized.
In his case, he humbly attributes luck to his situation, stating he was lucky that Louis van Gaal had just come, and was ready to give Müller a chance. “We struggled a little at the beginning of the season, so he gave me a chance. Basically, it was: ‘You’re there. Let’s try this guy.’ And then I was lucky enough to score in two or three games in a row,” he went on.
“And you know how it is in sports: the guy who scores the goal gets to play the next game because maybe he’ll score again,” he said.
Müller may have attributed luck, but he certainly was even better at using his luck to catapult himself into stardom.
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