Thomas Müller congratulates Saarbrücken on victory over Bayern Munich, looks forward to Der Klassiker

All the talent in the world is no match for sheer heart.

Bayern Munich found that out the hard way on a night in recently-rainy Saarbrücken, as the German Rekordmeister crashed out of the DFB-Pokal cup at just the second round — at the hands of an opponent struggling to stay mid-table in Germany’s third division.

It is a result that defies reason. Yet it is also why the matches are played on the field, not on paper.

“You can find many reasons,” Bayern star Thomas Müller admitted after the match (as captured by @iMiaSanMia). “All in all, we have to congratulate Saarbrücken on the fight, we just weren’t clever enough. We conceded a counterattack in stoppage time after having already missed a lot of chances beforehand. We were overwhelmingly superior in the second half. We can congratulate Saarbrücken, they should be happy. We did some things wrong, but things could have gone differently tonight.”

Müller opened the scoring with a neatly taken goal from outside the box in the 16th minute — but the Bavarians had a wretched first half otherwise, and conceded just as they were getting ready to head into the locker room. The same storyline played out in the second half, only in spite of their much renewed vigor in attack.

Now, though, Bayern is out. And the only way past this is to look forward

“The good thing is that we will play again in two days, even though that was of course a brutal blow,” Müller added. “Being knocked out in the second round every time we play in the Pokal is not what we want. Our fans are also angry and rightly so.”

The Raumdeuter was critical of some of his teammates’ responses to the defeat — not acknowledging the traveling Bavarian fan contingent before disappearing into the dressing room — and promised a “different face”. At Borussia Dortmund on Saturday, Müller and the rest of the Bayern players will get to show their response.

If you’re not done wallowing in the misery of this loss, you can check out our postgame review/rant about Thomas Tuchel and the state of Bayern Munich at the moment. Listen to it below or on Spotify.

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