Uli Hoeneß reflects on previous Bayern Munich legend’s leaving club amidst Thomas Müller’s swan song

Photo by TF-Images/TF-Images via Getty Images A lot of Bayern legends have been in the same exact boots Müller is in right now...

Thomas Müller has only got at least nine matches for Bayern Munich left between the Bundesliga, Champions League, and FIFA Club World Cup, however there could be more in the latter two competitions should they progress further. The day that many Bayern and German football fans were fearing for quite some time finally came to fruition just over a week ago — this is Müller’s last season with the German Rekordmeister, as the club decided to not offer him a one-year contract extension.Müller’s name is synonymous with Bayern and the Mia San Mia mentality, and he’ll be calling it quits in Munich after 17 well-decorated years with the club, having one every club trophy there is to possibly win, including the 2014 World Cup title with Germany in Brazil.

In Vincent Kompany’s first season in charge of the club taking over for Thomas Tuchel, it had slowly become clear that Müller’s minutes were starting to be managed, and the writing was on the wall for his contract to not be renewed; a decision Bayern’s board and front office did not make lightly.During a recent appearance speaking on Blickpunt Sport, former Bayern president Uli Hoeneß reflected on the club’s decision to not offer Müller a contract extension, paralleling the situation to previous instances he has witness where club legends wind up leaving on the club’s terms instead of their own. “It would have been better if he had made the decision and not FC Bayern.

I’ve seen many, many great players retire. Günter Netzer, Wolfgang Overath, Franz Beckenbauer, and Gerd Müller. There were problems with all of them in the end because they simply didn’t want to accept that they were no longer as good as they would have liked to be,” he explained (transcribed via @iMiaSanMia).

Photo by Stefan Matzke - sampics/Getty Images For Hoeneß, he feels that the club sort of led Müller on and left the perception of the door possibly still being open for a contract extension without decisively saying that they were not, in fact, going to offer him one. In essence, he was left in limbo for far too long, but there is certainly a great deal of details that go into these types of decisions. “We made mistakes by giving Thomas the impression for too long that his contract might be extended.

And when the sporting management had the talks with him, the decision had actually been made not to extend his contract. That was the start for a certain amount of unrest. Thomas wasn’t prepared for it and was of course angry,” Bayern’s honorary president stressed.

Between Bayern’s front office and supervisory board, there was not one person that felt the club should be offering a one-year extension to Müller. Because of that fact, Hoeneß feels that decision should have been explained as soon as it was agreed upon. Both Max Eberl and Christoph Freund have been working diligently behind the scenes to plan the squad for the future and try to generate funds for a transfer of Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen this summer, but waiting until they did to announce the Müller decision seemed a bit unfair.

For Hoeneß, the club needs to carry a good portion of the blame for the way the decision was poorly communicated to Müller himself as well as the rest of the club. His future at the club or elsewhere the longer the season went on was always a question that was looming large in the background of what was going on at Bayern, but now there is added pressure to finish the season strong seeing as it is Müller’s last one with the club. “This decision was made jointly by the entire club.

And there was not a single person—not a single person—on the committees, including the supervisory board, who had a different opinion. It was poorly communicated. We have to take responsibility for that,” Hoeneß admitted.

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