Thomas Mueller must be wondering what on earth is going on at the Euros. The talismanic Germany forward boasts 10 goals from two World Cups and is coming off a career-best 20 goals and 11 assists in the past Bundesliga season for Bayern Munich.
His tally at Euro 2016 in France after two games: zero - the same as it was at his debut at the continental tournament in 2012. Germany won the 2014 World Cup with the help of five Mueller goals and a good balance between defence, midfield and attack.
In France, the defence has improved after some problems in the opener against Ukraine, and kept a clean sheet in that game (2-0) and against Poland.
That goalless draw, however, exposed that the once fluid and fast-paced German passing game up front is stuttering ahead of tomorrow’s crucial final group game in Paris against Northern Ireland.
Coach Joachim Loew insists “we will win; we will win the group,” but he must be concerned that his front line is creating no chances.
Neither Julian Draxler on the left (in place of injured Marco Reus and preferred over Andre Schuerrle and Lukas Podolski), Mario Goetze (preferred over Mario Gomez), Mesut Oezil or Mueller have lived up to the expectations.
The goals against Ukraine came from defender Shkodran Mustafi and midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger.
“It doesn’t really bother me that I haven’t scored a goal at the Euros yet, but rather that I couldn’t create one really dangerous opportunity with the team. That’s difficult to get over,” Mueller said.
Coach Joachim Loew said Germany “lacked assertiveness”.
“Up front we didn’t create a lot of chances. We didn’t step up the pace but slowed down in the final third of the pitch,” Loew lamented after the Poland game.
Midfielder motor Toni Kroos said “we are missing something up front” while centre back Jerome Boateng fumed that “we did not win a single one-on-one moment up front.”
These moments are what Mueller needs, and gets at Bayern from the likes of Arjen Robben, Franck Ribery, Kingsley Coman or Douglas Costa, to fulfil his rather unique role within that forward line.
“Not quite a playmaker, some way short of a striker, and blessed with no extreme qualities of power or technique, Mueller is instead the world’s first Raumdeuter, which is German for ‘space investigator’,”
Britian’s Guardian described his role three years ago. “His special power is to find space, space invisible to the non-Raumdeuter, and spread into it like a plume of smoke, or a form of insidious footballing dry rot.”
That space is what Mueller is not getting in France because none of the team-mates create the openings for him.
“It is so obvious that Mueller is not part of the problem but should rather be the deciding factor for the solution,” Germany paper Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) said Saturday. “Rarely has it been so obvious that the German team depends on the goals of this guy without ligaments and cartilage” since the international retirement of Miroslav Klose, the SZ said.
Mueller has not even come close to such a moment in France but the Germans will need his quality if they want to lift the trophy for the first time since 1996 - the last time no German striker hit the net in the first two games.
“I am curious whether I will get a scoring chance in this tournament.”