After the final whistle to his Club World Cup, Thomas Muller waved to the Bayern Munich fans one last time.
His quarter-century with the German club is over.
The 35-year-old Muller went out with a 2-0 loss to Paris Saint-Germain in the quarterfinals on Saturday, a bittersweet ending to a tenure filled with so much glory.
Muller came on as a substitute in the 80th minute and appeared to draw a penalty in the waning seconds of stoppage time when PSG's Nuno Mendes delivered a high challenge in the area.
But the video review showed that Mendes' foot struck the ball, just missing Muller's chin, and that finished off the PSG victory.
“I'm still fully in work mode now,” Muller said. “It doesn't feel much different from before the game when we tried, and I also tried, to just get one round further.”
He wasn't ready to reflect on his brilliant career at Bayern, which began when he joined the club as a 10-year-old in the summer of 2000.
“In the end, maybe we deserved more,” Muller said. “But in football when you have these tight matches, it's sometimes a coin flip. And, yes, we lost it.”
Muller made more appearances than any other player at Bayern, with more than 200 goals scored and more than 200 set up for others. He led the club to a record 13 Bundesliga titles, going out with one last championship this past season.
But Bayern announced in April that it would not extend his hefty contract for another season.
“Of course, I am aware that this was my last game, and I will see what goes through my head in the coming days,” Muller said.
He hasn't revealed his future plans, though there have been reports linking him to a possible move to US-based Major League Soccer.
“At the moment, I'm not in the mood to share my deeper thoughts about my career,” Muller said. “We lost a big fight, a very important game for us.”
