Alright, he is almost here. It’s time to put any trepidation to the side (I get the sense it’s mostly me that has the trepidation) and start thinking about what having Thomas Muller means for the Vancouver Whitecaps.

MLS Roster Stuff for Nerds and Losers:

Reportedly, Muller will be signing a deal that makes him a TAM player in the first year and a DP in the second. There was one report out of Germany which suggests Muller’s salary in the first year will be a team friendly 687k, meaning not that much allocation money would need to be used to buy him down and potentially leaving room for more manoeuvring in the market. The Whitecaps also reportedly gave FC Cincinnati up to 400k for dibs (the Whitecaps also got dibs money for Allen Obando out of Inter Miami earlier this year so you aren’t allowed to get too upset by this). That might mean some roster pain in 2026 but the Whitecaps don’t need to apologise for anything if Muller helps them win MLS Cup in 2025.

Is Thomas Muller Washed?

At least somewhat. Muller’s age 34 season saw a fairly significant drop in his offensive outputs. xG, actual G, xG per shot, key passes, and passes into the penalty area were all down. There is a reason that Bayern Munich let him walk. That said, 0.56 xG+xA/90 across the Bundesliga and Champions League is still incredibly good. The decline is going to continue, he isn’t getting any younger, but he’s still going to score some goals in MLS.

Muller has a pretty even balance between scoring and setting up teammates, putting up 0.34 xG and 0.23 xG per 90 in the last 365 days. Fbref does not credit him with very many progressive passes but that’s because he mostly plays in the final 3rd so there isn’t that much distance to go by the time the ball comes to him. He does score highly in passes into the penalty area, a very valuable thing.

Do we expect those Bundesliga numbers to go up with the move to MLS? Well, I think we can all agree that MLS is a lot easier to score in than the Bundesliga. On the other hand, Muller is now a year older and no MLS team is as dominant as Bayern Munich. So, personally, I wouldn’t be shocked if those numbers basically stayed flat (which would still make Muller a very effective player).

How Fit is Thomas Muller? 

Last season the Whitecaps got about 4 good games out of Stuart Armstrong because he was coming from a league that was out of season. Muller is coming off a similar situation. However, I see two reasons to be optimistic on this front. Firstly, Muller played games for Bayern Munich at the Club World Cup. So he has played competitive minutes within the last 30 days. True, it wasn’t a ton of competitive minutes, and 90 of them were against semi-pro Auckland City. But he should be in a better position than Armstrong was.

The other reason is, as I mentioned in my previous article, the Whitecaps are not relying on Muller to make them good. If he can only play 20-30 minute cameos at first that is totally fine, there really is no reason to rush him to being a 90 minute player.

Where Does Muller fit in? 

No matter what formation you go with, I think the basic dynamics of Muller in the lineup are going to be about the same. Brian White will remain the centre-forward and Muller will play off of him. Ryan Gauld*, whenever he’s back, will be in some kind of play-making role. Sebastian Berhalter and Andres Cubas are going to be sitting a bit deeper. Edier Ocampo is going to be bombing forward on the right. With this in mind, here are a few formations that could make all of that work.

3-4-3

This lineup was my pick at first. The pros of this is that it is defensively solid. You give Utvik a bit of insulation by having Laborda and Blackmon playing against opponents cutting inside. You also give Cubas and Berhalter a little bit of extra support behind them and Tate Johnson gives you some more progressive passing in deeper areas. The problem is that it does not give you very much scope to use the wealth of forward options the Whitecaps now have. Ideally, the ‘Caps strongest lineup would include at least one of Ali Ahmed or Jayden Nelson.

4-2-3-1

I find myself coming around to this one. The major plus of this lineup is that it maximizes the amount of forward talent you can get onto the field. This lineup has Muller in the #10 role but I think there might be something to be said for putting him on the right, tucking inside to allow Ocampo to overlap. Ryan Gauld probably covers more ground defensively than Muller at this stage so you might want him in the centre of the field. The downside of this formation is that, with the third central midfield player pushed forward, you are asking Berhalter and Cubas to cover a lot of ground. You are also asking Berhalter to do pretty much all of the build-up from deeper areas. The Whitecaps really struggled last season when they

3-5-2

This lineup is a bit of balance between the two. You get the defensive solidity of a back 3 and a midfield 3 while still getting an extra attacking oriented wide player by moving Ali Ahmed back to wing-back. The big downside here, is I don’t think Jayden Nelson’s best position exists in this lineup and, based on his recent performances, I think you would want him in there. You would also really be hoping Kenji Cabrera, a player you just dropped a reasonable chunk of change on, can be play as a #8, a position he only has a handful of professional appearances in.

As a final note, I am still assuming Ryan Gauld will be back at some point, despite Jesper Sørensen’s recent radio hit. I feel, if you listen to the whole clip, the overall thrust of Sørensen’s comments is that Gauld is making progress but it’s hard to say exactly when he will play. The part about “not wanting to force it for only a short part of the season” seems a bit vague to me (i.e, are the playoffs part of “the season”?). If that ends up not being the case then just mentally slot Ali Ahmed, Jayden Nelson, Kenji Cabrera, JC Ngando or whatever midfielder they sign to replace Vite into these lineups (pick your favourite).