It looks like there's a long way to go before Thomas Mueller's club future is sorted out.
The Bayern Munich legend is out of contract at the end of the season, and earlier this week, reports emerged that the German giants aren't interested in renewing him.
That's the exact profile of player that often finds a move to MLS enticing, and the Twittersphere has suggested possible landing spots. But one post also suggested Bayern would prefer to see the 35-year-old land at LAFC, a club which enacted a talent development partnership with Bayern in 2023.
Bayern and LAFC's partnership is centered around identifying young players. So why would it be in the Bundesliga giant's best interest to see Mueller join the black-and-gold? Well, there's a couple possible reasons.
FC Cincinnati and San Diego FC are interested in Thomas Müller. But internally, Bayern are exploring a plan to find a mutual solution through their partner club Los Angeles FC and whether the MLS side can present Müller with a contract offer in order keep the links to the club… pic.twitter.com/3UrEUcsPWb
— Bayern & Germany (@iMiaSanMia) April 1, 2025
Mueller the scout?
The first is that Mueller could actually double as an informal MLS scout while playing his trade for LAFC, both of his own teammates in the senior squad and the LAFC youth system, and also of players elsewhere across MLS who might be a good fit for Bayern's needs.
Obviously, Alphonso Davies is the most obvious Bayern Munich success story, transferring from Vancouver to Bayern following the 2018 MLS season, and becoming a regular fixture in the first team by the 2019-2020 campaign.
But current USMNT defender Chris Richards left the FC Dallas youth academy for Bayern's, broke through elsewhere in the Bundesliga on loan and eventually fetched Bayern a transfer fee of more than $12 million from Crystal Palace. And German clubs in general have viewed the United States player market as a strong value market for some time.
They say no one knows if a player can play better than other players. So LAFC employing Mueller would allow Bayern to keep a formal talent evaluation relationship with the player without being a conflict of interest for his MLS club.
Mueller the ambassador?
There may also be some belief within Bayern ranks that Mueller could help boost the club's profile in an American market where it hasn't performed well compared to clubs of similar profile from England and Spain.
According to a list compiled by media analyst Larry Johnson, Bayern was only the 28th-most watched club on TV in the U.S. in 2023. And it may have lost some ground since then, based on the flow of several popular American players to Italy's Serie A, led by Christian Pulisic's move to AC Milan.
Mueller wouldn't be the first former Bayern star to play in MLS; Bastian Schweinsteiger (pictured above) spent his last three pro seasons with the Chicago Fire. But there's no MLS market -- not even New York -- that would provide Bayern as much exposure via Mueller as Los Angeles. And although Mueller might not possess the ideal personality to push his former club's brand, he's as much an emblem of the club as anyone who has played there in the last two decades.