Lothar Matthaus has laughed off speculation Thomas Muller could be set to leave Bayern Munich, as Germany’s top division gets set for a thrilling finale.
Bayern hold a slender lead over Borussia Dortmund, as the tightest Bundesliga title race in recent memory heads into its penultimate weekend.
The holders will face RB Leipzig, who are themselves pursuing Champions League football, at Allianz Arena in Munich on Saturday.
Dortmund, who are a point behind in second place, travel to nearby Augsburg a day later as they attempt to end Bayern’s 10-season monopoly on the title.
Bayern’s hierarchy reacted to their troubles this season by sacking Julian Nagelsmann and replacing him with Thomas Tuchel last month.
The early part of Tuchel’s reign has been notable for the amount of time on the bench endured by club stalwart Muller.
Recent weeks have seen speculation the 33-year-old forward could seek a move away from the club at the end of the season.
But Matthaus, a former playmaker for both Bayern and Germany, says he cannot envisage one of the club’s great players ever moving away.
“I can’t believe Muller would leave Bayern Munich because Muller is Bayern Munich,” Matthaus said.
“I cannot see him in another shirt. I cannot see him in another place. He is not only a footballer, he is an ambassador, he is the face, he is the press officer, he is making messages, he is making us talk about football.
“The fans love him, and I cannot see him in another team. I can’t see him at Real Madrid. He is not a Real Madrid player, he is a Bayern Munich player.
“If he is not a Bayern Munich player, nobody else is a Bayern Munich player.
“He will stay at Bayern Munich till the end of his career and later he will get a good position in the club, maybe like [former goalkeeper now club chief executive] Oliver Kahn or [ex-player and chairman] Karl-Heinz Rummenigge before.”
At the start of this year, Muller went back on his decision to retire from international football and Matthaus believes his club career has some way to run, too.
“He is not running away because he is sitting sometimes on the bench,” said Matthaus, who captained West Germany to the title in the 1990 World Cup.
“He would like to show everybody he has to play. He has to play because he is not only someone who is a good player but someone who cares about the game, and organises on the field.
“I think a coach should be happy to have on the field a player like Thomas Muller.”
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Marital status: Single
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
