"Nobody wants to hear it"

Lothar Matthäus: “Müller is puking inside!”

Lothar Matthäus (right) spoke about Thomas Müller in his Sky column.(Bild: APA/AFP/Haitham AL-SHUKAIRI, APA/Sascha Schuermann)

Lothar Matthäus comes down hard on FC Bayern in his usual manner. "Even if Müller laughs on the outside, on the inside he's puking, as they say in soccer parlance," Matthäus said in his Sky column.

Müller had a difficult time under coach Thomas Tuchel right from the start. "This is not a Thomas Müller game," the 50-year-old was often heard to say.

Matthäus: "Tuchel hasn't managed to strengthen players like Matthijs de Ligt, Alphonso Davies, Joshua Kimmich, Leon Goretzka and Thomas Müller. Davies and Goretzka are only a shadow of their former selves at the moment because the coach has taken away their belief in themselves.

"I don't want to hear that as a player"
And: "Even if Müller laughs on the outside, on the inside he's puking, as they say in soccer parlance! Müller certainly never wanted to hear a sentence like Tuchel's "this is not a Thomas Müller game"! I'm sure Kimmich also threw up when Tuchel talked about the Holding Six. As a player, I don't want to hear that I'm not good enough in the position where I won the Champions League two years previously and where I was a leader.

The record-breaking German international takes the players to task. "If the character of the players is right, then FC Bayern doesn't need Tuchel or anyone else on the bench right now. Leaders like Neuer, Müller and Kimmich have been through it all and know what success feels like," said Matthäus, who believes Bayern can still win the Champions League title: "If the team works and every player gives their best, they can win the Champions League. They can, because they've already shown it."