Rood-Witten (& Blau) Malik Tillman at PSV America (olf Bayern Munich)

Tillman is now a no-brainer call-up when healthy. He might be our most talented offensive player now. Just oozes class w/ the ball at his feet and one of the few players we have that can strike the ball appropriately. But given he is just coming back from two injuries and the fact that we are playing Granada and ES at home... I am guessing they just don't think the risk is worth it considering the opponents/location of game. I hope it doesn't come back to bite us... because it really looks like we should be building our team around him.

 

I see you, Mr Hudson.​

 

Zelalem looked pretty good for Rangers too. While Tillman is undeniably talented, I don’t think you can build around a guy playing in Scotland.

 

True but Zelalem played for Rangers when they were in the 2nd tier Championship

 

Yeah, a better comparison would be Emerson Hyndman, who in his less than half a season at Rangers scored at a rate (GPM) in the league that Tillman only just recently bettered.

 

The goal:

it's tillman , he's back pic.twitter.com/27xMI4hcnh

— RED WHITE AND BLUE (@_R_W_B_) March 18, 2023

 

It's good he's gotten less cute - I think it's made a bit of a difference.

 

Tillman starts! Rangers (2nd) hosting Dundee United (12th, last). {Ian Harkes also starting, for DU.}

​

 

Rangers 1-0 Dundee Utd, nearing halftime...​

 

2-0. Another goal for Malik Tillman.

 

FULL-TIME: Rangers 2-0 Dundee United

Three Points at Ibrox. pic.twitter.com/zyHpqPRjYn

— Rangers Football Club (@RangersFC) April 1, 2023

 

10/4 G/A in 25 appearances for Rangers. Pretty great year for the 20-year-old. Transfermarkt says that he has participated in 19% of all goal contributions.

 

I must preface this with a completely honest and up front take that: nobody gets points for being "right or wrong" on arguments here, we're all right, we're all wrong all the time.

Just a list on current USMNT guys I was either wrong to be ambivalent about or straight up wrong about nuanced or unnuanced (I view Ream as a nuanced, since my critique was Ream as LB, since we insisted on using him that way, but the scale of my distaste circa '19-'21 was so immense that I shouldn't even give that caveat), but as an example:

Scally: Did not rate him at all in '19, had no idea he was good (jumped on board in '21 but still).

Dest: Same deal circa '17, but jumped on board in '19.

Arriola: Major haterade from me until I began to appreciate the little things he does bring and not focus entirely on his middling touch and god awful finishing.

Wright: Huge fan, gave up entirely in that late '18 to spring '20 period when his career seemed to enter an uncontrolable spin and crash into the sea, suddenly he was back in '20-'21 and I was back with him.

Horvath could be another one, I overreacted with vividness bias after his howler against Portugal in late '17.

And let me tell you, there were dozens of prospects I fell in love with 2005-2012, dual nats and self developed and none of them became squat....

So I'm wrong a billion times.

That being said, good lord, some of the takes on Tillman based on paying zero attention to his work with Bayern Munich, and ascribing no value whatsoever to his excellent production with them at the youth level or there obvious fandom of his game, and based 100% on a couple of dozen minutes playing with players he has never met and had no background with last June and this past fall? Man do those takes look embarrassing as hell right now.

I can get people being wrong about guys in a lot of ways, I suffer hugely historically from overhyping prospects because post high school pretty much all my favorite teams in all sports sucked (Redskins, Capitals, Boulez/Wizards, Cleveland and Montreal/Washington in Baseball), so as a result I became obsessive w/the hope that prospects for my terrible teams might provide. The education of 30 years worth of failed prospects in terms of overhyping only took effect this last decade, so I'm hear to say I got my own foibles as well.

I just find it interesting when people are so quick to dump a player into the waste bin off one little bit of visual evidence from a friendly? as a reminder, we now have had the exact same thing happen with Zendejas. He was ---- because he was middling or worse in January, he was great because of his well taken goal last week, and he was again ---- after another middling performance against Panama. Instead why not just look at his production with his team? He had his breakout in '20-'21, since fall '20, he's basically been immensely productive in Liga MX. Period. Full Stop. Everything else is gravy. He will get reps, camps etc, and he will settle in between 4th and 6th on the wing forward/winger depth chart. He has plusses and minuses, and we'll live with him. A vivid poor game or middling game in January or March is irrelevant, the sample size is tiny. The sample size with Liga MX is far more relevant until he's been in a bunch of camps. If Roldan gets nearly 3 dozen caps, and countless camps to accomplish nothing, don't worry about 2 camps where he had 1 good game, and two "meh" games. Give him time.

Same with Tillman. Basically an excellent Bayern Munich prospect that probably wasn't that Alphonso developmental line of going straight into the first team, instead he's probably a level or two below that in terms of ceiling, but we can't be sure, all we know with certainty is inbetween the ACL injuries, he killed it for them as a youth player, and in his first professional season with Rangers he's now into double digit goals (12) and he's now got 5 goals in 4 games, and 9 in his last 7. The breakout is happening, he's solved the SPL and become the Rangers go to attacking player in his age 20 season. It's here, the May/June and September camps meant ---- all in terms of his abilities and ceiling and floor, they were an introduction, the sample size with Rangers is the menu in full, at age 20. Enjoy it.

 

The goals:

MALIK TILLMAN GOAL 🇺🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🦅 20-year-old born in Nürnberg, Germany thumps one past Dundee goalkeeper to give Rangers the lead. Bayern loanee now has 9 league goals this season. 🙌pic.twitter.com/wuMttWVJq8

— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) April 1, 2023

🚨 MALIK TILLMAN BRACE

The USMNT midfielder has added a second goal for Rangers against Dundee United in the Scottish Premier League taking him to double digits on the season. Many Rangers fans hoping the Bayern Munich loanee makes his move permanent. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/jSI7j4eopc

— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) April 1, 2023

 

Add to that his goal scoring is accelerating and it is, to me, even more impressive. Sometimes a striker comes in, teams are unprepared for them, they sneak a few goals, then settle into a less productive rate as defenses adjust. In Tillman's case it's like he came, paid attention, figured out the league and how to put up numbers. The SPL is not as hard a league to figure out as some others, but guys that crack the nut on how to score with regularity in SPL or similar leagues get another (in Tillman's case) shot at a better situation. He's scoring himself out of Gers' financial zone at this rate.

 

all one can do is to produce where they are ... seems that he is doing just that.

 

https://prosoccerwire.usatoday.com/lists/americans-abroad-is-rangers-star-tillman-ready-for-bayern/

Tillman’s one-year loan from Bayern Munich has a unique structure: Rangers hold a purchase option worth a reported £5 million. That’s looking like an increasingly easy decision for Rangers but there’s a catch: Bayern also reportedly holds a buy-back clause that it could trigger immediately after Rangers use their own purchase option.

Prior to the season, the 20-year-old was virtually unproven in senior club soccer. Now he’s played himself into a weird state of purgatory: maybe too good for the Scottish Premiership but also maybe not ready for the 10-time defending Bundesliga champions.

 

I wonder if BVB would roll in and snap him up somehow?

 

Made Team of the Week:

SunSport's Kris Boyd has picked his Premiership Team of the Week.

16-year-old Dylan Smith makes the cut after an outstanding performance against Celtic on his first Ross County start 🌟 pic.twitter.com/gC9GQu4Xns

— Scottish Sun Sport (@scotsunsport) April 3, 2023

 

I don’t really see the catch. If they don’t trigger the buy option, then he goes back to Bayern and they get nothing. If they trigger it, they either get some money from Bayern or another club, or they have a good player on their squad next year.

and while I’d love to see him move to a better league next year, he needs to be careful. Going to a weak Bundesliga team could undo a lot of the progress he’s made this year. Same for going to a Bayern or BVB and riding the bench. He needs to find a club that will pay enough to pry him from Rangers, give him a decent shot at PT, and surround him with at least mid-table talent.

 

Yep, he basically wants a proven mid table side with European ambitions. Knowing nothing of style of play, that reminds me of clubs like Rennes, Lille, Lyon and Monaco in France, teams like Atalanta, Fiorentina, Torino and Lazio in Italy (although Lazio's having a spectacular year this season), RBL, Frankfurt, Leverkusen, Freiburg, and Wolfsburg in Germany, or Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Brighton etc in EPL. I never think of him and Spain, but if I did, it would be like Betis, Sociedad, Villareal, Sevilla etc.

That's what I want. Not the big dogs, like the big 5 or so in England, the big 2 in Spain, big 2 in Germany, PSG, or Juventus, or AC Milan or Napoli in Italy but that next tier below those guys, Maybe I should have mentioned AC Milan or Inter, but AC Milan won the title last year, and Inter is apparently being bought by some Saudi group so they'll probably flood the team with cash.

Suffice it to say, there are a ton of teams in that 4th-12th in the standings area in big 5 leagues, and thats where I want him, but w/a team w/a reasonable midfield and attack around him in general.

 

Oh and I 100% expect Scotland to activate the purchase, and Bayern to trump it, I wonder what Rangers does then though? Do they try to pay more or do they walk? They must know that Bayern aren't so stupid as to sell him on for this little considering his ceiling. My big fear, like most peoples, is that #1 he goes to Bayern and has a Dest at Barcelona kind of bench year, or that he gets loaned out on a really poor, ill thought out loan, but considering his talent and play, I'm hoping he jumps to a second tier side in a big 5 league, just say no to the really big dogs, but yes to the ambitious second tier ones.

 

I don't know the inside deal at all, but Bayern seem relatively sane regarding players - I could also see both clubs renegotiate the deal so that Gers get Tillman for another year, and Bayern get to have him back to sell. Unless BM think this is the top of MT's value curve.

 

Can't imagine Bayern will let him go for 5 million. And no idea if Rangers will be able to afford what they will want for another year. Would love to see him stay another year and further solidify himself and get a full season of starts under his belt.

 

Made another TOTW: