Thomas Muller has revealed that Bayern Munich's senior players treat youngsters at the club with just as much respect.
Stories such as former goalkeeper Oliver Kahn stealing a young Bastian Schweinsteiger's towel in the dressing room have been well documented, but Muller insistsnothing like that happens at the club today.
Speaking toGoal, he said:Everyone has his own towel now - we even have some spare towels. I don't know what it was like a few years ago.
Muller: The days of towel theft at Bayern are gone https://t.co/hotq0XizlM
When I started as a professional footballer, the change was already underway. It was no longer that an older player was a strong character. The older ones took us by the hand. If you can deliver on the pitch, you will be accepted pretty fast.
I don't know about other attitudes and I would not behave differently when dealing with younger players. They need help rather than someone who tells them what to do. But that was then “ and before that it was probably even more extreme. Those are things that change in society, too.�
Muller added that his role models as a youngster at Bayern helped him in the early days of his career.
Mark Van Bommel was the captain and he took care of young players like Holger Badstuber or myself. We sat at his dinner table. Or with Arjen Robben,� he added.
"And I had a lot of contact with the German guys, like Basti and Philipp Lahm. Those who controlled the team took care that the young ones could follow them.�
The 27-year old has been with the German champions his entire career,playing more than 360 games and scoring more than 150 goals.