Thomas Müller talks about former coach Niko Kovac in an interview. He stresses the good relationship between the two, but one thing has been strange.
Bayern star Thomas Müller had a difficult time under Niko Kovac and often found himself only on the bench.
“I have no problem with a coach rotating or deciding to put another player on the bench. It’s a coach’s job to make decisions,” Müller looked back in an interview with US portal The Athletic.
He added: “But it was strange for me to be out of the starting eleven for six weeks in a row. Some players were tired, I was fit, I worked hard – and still wasn’t there.
In between, Kovac even explained that Muller only comes into action “when there is a need.” The Croatian later admitted that this choice of words was a mistake. “The statement was no problem for me,” Müller now commented: “I understood that he meant it in reference to a certain game. In retrospect it was worse for him than for me. Our personal relationship was good and still is. But as far as our views on sporting matters were concerned, we simply couldn’t agree.”
Müller self-critically: “We didn’t play well.”
In November 2019, the Bavarian officials pulled the rip cord and fired Kovac. Afterwards, the then president, Uli Hoeneß, hinted that the team had spoken out against the coach. Müller contradicted this statement: “There is only one reason why coaches are fired: lack of success. Under Niko Kovac we generally didn’t play good football in the two autumn periods of 2018 and 2019. Even though we made good games from time to time.”The 30-year-old explained that the team was not happy with the results. “But we didn’t sit down and say that one person was to blame. We knew we made a lot of mistakes. We didn’t play well or lost due to individual mistakes,” Müller said.
He added: “It’s not the tactics. A coach can’t do anything against such situations. But the goal of every coach must be to prevent such situations from arising in the first place. We – the team and the coach – were not able to do this.”
Under Kovac’s successor Hansi Flick, Müller once again became a fixture in the Bayern game and thanked him for his confidence with strong performances. Nine goals and 17 assists are his yield so far in 32 competitive matches. After the end of the national team Müller could go to the Olympics this summer.