Daily Schmankerl: Merry Christmas! David Alaba is Santa Claus; Thomas Muller plays a tuba; Chelsea’s bootleg Sancho; and MORE!

David Alaba takes to the streets dressed as Santa Claus (Bundesliga.com)

David Alaba continues to prove that he can play literally any position. Not content with putting in world class performances at center back, the Bayern Munich defender took to the streets of Munich dressed as Santa Claus handing out treats to unwitting passers-by.

On his disguise, Alaba said:

As Santa Claus, it’s a little more relaxed to walk around the Christmas market.

At Christmas time you should share your joy. Even if it was just a small gesture, people and especially the children in downtown Munich were very happy. And I really had fun with it, too.

The support of our fans and followers in Munich is extremely important to us - we’re happy to give something back at Christmas time.

Thomas Muller is quite the musician (Instagram)

We have to say, this is very on-brand for Thomas Muller.

Bundesliga fans are the best

Chelsea have hired a Jadon Sancho impersonator (News18)

Let’s put the Christmas cheer aside for a second, and talk about something weird. Chelsea youngster Ethan Ampadu chopped off his trademark dreadlocks. The result was a rather familiar face ...

Isn’t that literally just Jadon Sancho? Sure does look like it. If this is an attempt by Frank Lampard to psych us out before the Champions League game, then it’s not going to work. The real Sancho is still in Alphonso Davies’ pocket, an impostor isn’t going to scare us.

Philippe Coutinho’s market value tanked in 2019 (Transfermarkt)

It hasn’t been a great year for Philippe Coutinho, at least according to transfermarkt. The Brazilian has lost half of his initial €140m valuation from the beginning of the year, bringing it down to ‘just’ €70m. His was the single greatest decrease in market value over the course of the calendar year, ahead of players like Gareth Bale and Eden Hazard.

An interesting thing to note on that list — 9 of the top 10 biggest drops are all from players based in Spain, with the only exception (Coutinho) being on loan from Barcelona. Maybe that’s a trend? “Playing in Spain makes players worse!” That would be a great headline, but the truth is probably less exciting. Players playing for the “Big 2” Spanish giants have long been overrated and overvalued, and this is just the start of a slow equalization process.

As for Coutinho, we Bayern fans don’t really have to worry about the drop in his valuation all that much. At €140m he was probably waaaaaaaaaay overvalued to begin with, and we’re not the ones that paid €145m to buy him from Liverpool.

A message from Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (FCBayern.com)

In a letter addressed to all members and fans of FC Bayern, club chairman Karl-heinz Rummenigge wished everyone a Merry Christmas, and talked about so far. You can check out his full statement on the club website, but here’s something we found particularly interesting:

I’ve been impressed with how our team has performed in the Champions League this time round, though. They’ve shown great character, even when they were playing dead rubbers. We qualified for the last 16 after Matchday 4 and you might let things slide a bit after that, but the team didn’t do that at all and instead became the first German side ever to finish a Champions League group stage with a perfect record: six wins from six matches. That was a statement that made Europe sit up and take notice.

Kalle seems rather pleased with the direction the team is headed. It’s a pretty stark contrast from last year, where he wasn’t one of Kovac’s biggest fans. Seems like Hansi Flick has won over the most powerful man in Munich at the moment — let’s see how it goes for him.