There’s a narrative that Sunday’s World Cup final will be Lionel Messi vs. the Machine, a German team devoid of stars.
Don’t buy it.
Thomas Mueller is a star, one that perfectly encapsulates what this German team is all about. He’s versatile, selfless, a ruthless finisher and an unyielding competitor. Oh, and he’s a prolific winner.
In his short career, Mueller already has shown not only a willingness to do whatever is needed to win, but an ability to do it well. He has played forward, midfield, and even tracks back to defend. With five goals already in Brazil, he is just the second man to score that many in consecutive World Cups. A tally Sunday could make him the first to ever win consecutive Golden Boot awards as the tournament’s top scorer.
And he’s just 24 years old.
“There isn’t a team in the world that wouldn’t like to have Thomas Mueller on its side,” United States coach Jurgen Klinsmann gushed after Mueller scored the only goal of the game to defeat the U.S. 1-0 in the group stage. “He is a remarkable player.”
Klinsmann would know better than most. The star scorer on Germany’s last World Cup-winning side back in 1990, he was the one who, after taking over the national team, orchestrated youth development reforms that helped produce Mueller. While coaching Bundesliga power Bayern Munich in 2008, it was Klinsmann who gave Mueller his first-team professional debut.
But even Klinsmann couldn’t have anticipated the champion Mueller would become.
Mueller helped Bayern to a dominant 2012-13 campaign. Even though he only had 25 starts this past season — new Bayern coach Pep Guardiola never seeming enamored with the workmanlike Mueller because he isn’t stylish, doesn’t do stepover or flashy dribbles — he still managed 13 goals and 10 assists.
The beauty of Mueller’s game is in the results — the ends not the means.
There is a maturity to his game that has been there from the start.
It was against this same Argentina team Mueller made his national team debut back in March 2010. After Germany lost that friendly 1-0 at home, Mueller showed up to a postgame press conference and Argentina coach Diego Maradona mistook him for a ballboy, refusing to speak and leaving the podium until Mueller departed.
By that July, Mueller saw Maradona and Argentina in the World Cup. He scored just three minutes into the game to spark Germany to a 4-0 emasculation of Argentina, crowing afterward: “He won’t think I’m a ballboy anymore.’’
No one will mistake him for a ballboy Sunday at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janeiro. He has Germany favored to win its first World Cup since he was just months old and still in diapers.
Admittedly, Mueller is an odd player. Teammates Toni Kroos and Mesut Ozil are more technical, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo more stylish; Mueller is about as stylish as work boots. He doesn’t have a great first touch, but he possesses great timing and a clutch gene. And even if Guardiola hasn’t figured out his perfect position in club play, Germany coach Joachim Loew has concocted the perfect way to use him: do it all.
Germany doesn’t have a classic No. 9, a pure target striker, and Mueller has filled that role at times. He is not a Ryan Giggs-style winger, but he has played on both the left and the right, cutting inside from the flanks to wreak havoc and create for teammates, and can play as a No. 10. Mueller even tracks back to defend, among the top eight players in this World Cup in the amount of ground he has covered.
It was Mueller’s three assists that won the tiebreaker for the Golden Boot in 2010, and three more this time would give him the edge if he can catch James Rodriguez (six goals) and stay ahead of Messi (four goals).
Mueller does it all — except dance, apparently, as a video went viral on the Internet of his unfortunate dance moves. But if he fires Germany to a win Sunday, nobody would begrudge him a victory dance.
Mueller is a stone cold finisher. He tore up Portugal in Germany’s opening rout, beat the U.S., and in what was expected to be a tight semifinal against Brazil, scored twice in a 7-1 rout of the hosts, admitting afterward: “We broke the opponent.’’
Argentina’s defense may be too stout for a blowout, but that suits Mueller fine. More than any other player, he epitomizes Germany getting back to its old win-ugly ways.
When fans and media questioned this team’s pragmatism, Mueller shot back.
“If other teams in other countries [win] like that, then it is dismissed as clever,” he said. “I don’t want to become world champion and afterwards stand up to apologize, saying, ‘Sorry that we won the final with just one goal.’ ”
The way Mueller is playing, it could happen. And don’t bet against him getting the goal.