Sometimes in football, as in life, things don’t truly hit you until they’re over.
Last Saturday, assigned to commentate from the Allianz Arena on Bayern Munich vs. Borussia Monchengladbach and the subsequent presentation of the Meisterschale, I knew the main show would be the Thomas Müller Abschied (farewell) to Munich, his last game in the Bavarian capital for FC Bayern. In keeping with Müller’s larger-than-life personality, this was an XXL goodbye, full of emotion, appreciation, traditional Weissbierduschen (beer showers) and raucous laughter including a slightly dark joke.
It also had a somber timbre. Rarely can I recall a match being halted for a few seconds while a guard of honor is formed to salute a player leaving a game.
But this was no ordinary exit.
In those few seconds, Mia San Mia (We Are Who We Are) became Mia San Müller. Everyone around me stood to say thank you to the man who has, more than anyone else in recent history, come to personify FC Bayern.
Müller is the essential local hero, an Identifikationsfigur, brought up just outside Munich in the community of Pähl. But at the same time, this wonderfully off-the-cuff footballer possesses an almost universal platform and appeal.
I got talking on the U-Bahn on Saturday afternoon to two fans wearing the special-for-the-occasion No. 25 shirt with Müller’s name emblazoned on it. Both, in their mid-20s, confessed they had no real memories of watching their beloved club without Müller — part football creator, part comedian — as the centerpiece of it all.
You can try to dissect his legendary career purely by numbers and come away thoroughly wowed. Müller is, after all, Bayern’s Rekordspieler with exactly 750 appearances in all competitions and 502 in the Bundesliga. On Saturday, when Manuel Neuer‘s expert stagecraft ensured it would be Müller hoisting the coveted Schale, it was his 13th such lift — a record, of course.
It also took his number of major honors won for club and country to 34, joint most ever by a German, together with former Bayern teammate Toni Kroos.
But it’s more than data that makes Müller a legend. The human factor is what separates him from other greats of the past, and in a very real sense, every Bayern fan feels they know Thomas Müller.
This is a man with a permanent Augenzwinkern (wink). Whereas football is a pressure-packed sport, Müller has made it look like the kind of joyful experience we all had as kids playing the game with our best friends in the local park.
Müller still can log up to eight more matches for Bayern, including at the FIFA Club World Cup, but speaking personally, I hope Vincent Kompany doesn’t deploy him on Saturday away to TSG Hoffenheim. We should always be able to refer back to May 10, 2025 and say that was it: Müller in Munich with the Meisterschale. His final Bundesliga bow.
Final-day drama in the Bundesrepublik
Bayern’s weekend trip to Sinsheim offers them the chance, if nothing else, to break the team record for goals in a single season. In order to top their 101 haul from 1971-72, though, they’ll need seven — a lofty benchmark on the back of a two-day Meisterfeier in Ibiza.
Hoffenheim have to pay attention because should they lose by six clear goals and Heidenheim beat Werder Bremen by one, then Hoffenheim would drop into the relegation playoff position, rendering Heidenheim completely safe. It’s unlikely but not impossible.
Most of the final day drama will focus on the concluding chapter in the story of the chase for UEFA Champions League places.
Borussia Dortmund host already-demoted Holstein Kiel, knowing that a two-goal win in all plausible scenarios will see them gobble up a prize that looked beyond them a few short weeks ago. Dortmund have prevailed in six of their past seven league matches with the only exception a creditable 2-2 draw in Munich.
The fun could come at SC Freiburg, where third-placed Eintracht Frankfurt are the visitors. Eintracht have been ensconced in the top four since November, but a defeat in the Breisgau region would see them tumble out of the Champions League reckoning as the music stops — if BVB do what’s expected of them.
Freiburg, who begin the final round in fifth, have never heard the evocative anthem of Europe’s premier club competition in their own environs, but their prospects are very real. That they’ve got themselves into this position despite a negative goal difference is truly remarkable.
The odd team out will have to settle for the UEFA Europa League, while the UEFA Conference League spot will entail a Fernduell (a duel between two teams not playing directly against each other). Mainz hold the cards over RB Leipzig, but the former might have to beat Bayer Leverkusen while the latter host German Cup favorites VfB Stuttgart.
The constellation this year means the winners of the Pott in Berlin on May 24 — Stuttgart or outsiders Arminia Bielefeld of the third division — will compete in the Europa League next term.
Then get ready for chaos on Sunday in the 2. Bundesliga. Hamburg have already clinched promotion after seven years down a division.
Will FC Cologne join them? A draw would be enough at home against sixth-placed Kaiserslautern, but a defeat could mean not being promoted at all. Unfashionable Elversberg and Paderborn are waiting to apply the pressure on a day of simultaneous kickoffs, traveling to 13th-placed Schalke and ninth-placed Karlsruher, respectively.
The word “Zitterpartie” (a game that makes you tremble) will be aptly used up and down the Bundesrepublik.
