Euro 2016 is full of big names but could it be the familiar face of Thomas Muller who steals the show again? Don’t bet against Germany’s unique star, writes Adam Bate…
The first instinct is to tell yourself that Thomas Muller is a throwback. He's the one-club man with more than 350 appearances for Bayern Munich who endears himself to supporters with his knowledge of Bavarian slang. He's the guy with his socks around his ankles who's joking away in the changing room before the biggest of games. Old school.
But then the realisation hits. There has never been anyone like Muller. The self-professed raumdeuter - the space invader - who has made a career out of deceiving defences with his movement. No forward does so much of his work deep, no midfielder has such an impact in the opposition box. Maybe he's the player of the future, but don't count on that either.
In the present, Joachim Low needs Muller and what Germany's coach refers to as his "unorthodox playing style" that's already brought 10 World Cup goals and the trophy itself. One former coach once said Muller can play badly for 90 minutes and still score the winner. No wonder goalkeeper coach Andreas Kopke calls him "unbelievably important" to his team.
"Muller always plays" was Louis van Gaal's mantra during the Dutchman's time at Bayern but pinpointing an exact role for the 26-year-old hasn't always been so straightforward. Pep Guardiola even dropped him for the first leg of Bayern's Champions League semi-final against Atletico Madrid - and was given cause to regret it. Low will not make that mistake.
Perhaps the only thing that really matters when it comes to Muller's best position is to know that if his own team cannot be certain where they want him to be on the field at any one time, the opposition have no clue either. "All our opponents find him hard to handle because his runs are very clever and he keeps popping up in the box," Low once said.
Ostensibly, he's been used on the right flank for his country but it hasn't hampered his output. With nine goals during qualifying, Muller outscored the other 22 men in Germany's Euro 2016 squad combined. Low spoke of his "sixth sense" after a winner against Scotland. "He only thinks of scoring, scoring and scoring," he explained. "You can't teach that."
Muller himself admits he follows his instinct on the field and perhaps that's why Guardiola took a little time to be convinced to unleash what he couldn't necessarily control. Despite that semi-final omission, by and large Bayern's coach learnt to trust those instincts - and with good reason. Not for nothing did Bild argue in 2014 that Muller had "the killer gene".
Consider the tournament record of a player who won the World Cup golden boot in 2010 just four months after making his international debut. There has been a header against Argentina and two goals on the counter-attack versus England. Three of his World Cup goals came directly from efforts parried out to him by goalkeepers.
"That's Thomas Muller," said Low after one such strike, part of a hat-trick against Portugal in 2014. They are the goals of a predator; a striker. But he is rather more elusive than that. "The key is to avoid these situations altogether," said Muller, quoted in The Guardian. "You have to pick your space and time." And Muller always picks the right space at the right time.
According to a recent study by the CIES Football Observatory, it's been enough to make him Bayern and Germany's most valuable player at almost £60m. But Muller is perhaps more important to his country. International football can be a battle against congested defences, but Muller, with his late blind-side runs, can expose that illusion of organisation.
Having missed Germany's surprise 3-1 defeat to Slovakia, a reminder of how much he's missed, Muller was on the score-sheet again in the final warm-up game against Hungary. It was his 32nd goal for his country, but only the sixth in friendlies. This extraordinarily high percentage of goals scored in competitive matches might not be without significance.
His form, like his runs on the pitch, appears to be a matter of expert timing. After netting 24 goals in 24 games at the start of the campaign, with Bayern in control of the Bundesliga, Muller scored only 12 in 29 from December until the end of the club season. Not necessarily a coincidence given that Muller has admitted that easy games can challenge his motivation.
Was he saving his best form for the summer? Ukraine, Poland, Northern Ireland and the rest are about to find out. Muller is no throwback. But that doesn't mean Euro 2016 won't have echoes of the World Cup in Brazil. Perhaps we're about to get yet another reminder that there really is only one Thomas Muller.