1 month ago
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Goal waved off
©IMAGO
It wasn’t quite meant to be. The Vancouver Whitecaps had a 1-0 lead over the visiting Houston Dynamo in front of 26,031 fans at BC Place thanks to an early penalty goal by Brian White when Thomas Müller came on (61’). Soon after, the Whitecaps thought they had put the game away thanks to a beautiful goal by Müller. Indeed, BC Place was on its feet when Müller scored with a great strike from outside the box. Instead, the offside flag went up, and the goal wouldn’t count. No dream debut, especially as Artur would equalize late for the Dynamo (1-1).
“I have mixed feelings,” Müller said after the game.” I think the moment when I scored the [offside] goal it was amazing. The noise in the stadium and the reaction of my teammates. That was a great start for me. In the end, the result was a little bit disappointing. It was a good shot, it was a great shot, in the end, it was not lucky, but if you follow the game, maybe he’ll score this goal once a season,” Müller added. The goal would have been a perfect wrap for what has been an eventful few days for Müller. The 35-year-old arrived in Vancouver on Wednesday; on Thursday, he was officially presented by his new club. Then he was straight off to training, all accompanied by his own personal media team and a horde of German journalists following his every step. Back in Munich, the press certainly paid attention. “Müllermania in Vancouver” screamed a headline by a local Munich newspaper. Müller has done what no player in Whitecaps history has ever done before: captured the attention of a major football city, indeed the entire nation.
This might be the most Germany has paid attention to one of their stars playing outside of Europe since Lothar Matthäus joined the New York/New Jersey MetroStars (now New York Red Bulls) in 2000. Off the pitch, the impact has already been enormous for Vancouver. The next step is for Müller to do what he was truly signed for: winning the MLS Cup, the first major trophy since the Whitecaps won the old NASL Cup back in 1979. “I think that he has a high football IQ, so he understands where to position himself and also which spaces to attack,” head coach Jesper Sørensen said. “And of course, he’s been here for three days. We want to integrate him into the team as quickly as possible. And I think that he has done very well since he came, two training sessions.”
Against St. Louis CITY SC – When will we see Müller start for the first time?
What’s next? “Now he’ll have a good training week, and if everything goes well, we’ll see him in the starting lineup pretty soon, probably next Saturday, but we have to see,” Sørensen said. There is then a possibility that Müller will get his first start next Saturday when the Vancouver Whitecaps face St. Louis CITY SC at BC Place. There will be plenty of familiar faces in that game for Müller. St. Louis have five Germans in the squad, and in Roman Bürki, Müller will face a goalkeeper he is familiar with from many battles between Bayern and Dortmund in the Bundesliga.
Where will he play on the pitch? “He has to play some kind of central position, maybe not in the front line, but just below, that will be his favourable position,” Sørensen said. “I think there were a lot of good things today to look into, and we’ll build from there.” The conversations with Sørensen were one of the main reasons why Müller ended up joining the Whitecaps in the first place. And the 2014 World Cup winner once again underlined his trust in the Danish head coach on Sunday. “Yes, 100 percent,” Müller said when asked about Sørensen. “Jesper expected this from me.”
Once he was on, Müller organized the midfield around him, looking for gaps and trying to create chances. It didn’t quite pay off this time, but the game against Houston certainly is a blueprint for what Whitecaps’ fans can expect in the coming weeks. “Jesper knew before, when they brought me in, that this is natural behaviour of me,” Müller said. “If I’m on the pitch, I try to organize my own position first, but when I see something that I think is good for the team to adapt about positioning or intensity or passing gaps, then I will communicate with my teammates directly and I think that will never change, even if it’s my first game.” In that department, Müller had a perfect start. All that is missing are the goals. But those will come without a doubt.
