Auf Wiedersehen, Basti: Right player, wrong time
Looks like Pep Guardiola was right after all.
Back in August 2015, the then Bayern manager was asked in a press conference whether Bastian Schweinsteiger would be a success at Manchester United. Guardiola, who sanctioned the Bayern legend’s £6.7 million move to Old Trafford, delivered a pointed answer:
When he does not have injury problems, I am completely convinced he will do very well at Manchester United.
He is a top, top player. Unfortunately, during the last three years he was never in good condition.
He is going to play really good there (at United). I really hope that is going to happen.
Guardiola had seen first-hand signs of Schweinsteiger’s decline. One of the finest players of his generation, his output had declined during the previous Bundesliga season. He only started 15 league games in his last season for Bayern, in contrast to 22 the season before and 27 in 2012-13.
Would the injury problems that plagued his final years in Munich follow the venerated World Cup winner to Manchester? Not initially. He quickly adapted to life under Louis van Gaal at the club and featured in United’s first 15 Premier League games of last season.
However, Guardiola’s analysis was spot on. He had been right to be wary of the amount of miles on Schweinsteiger’s midfield engine. The former German international never looked fully fit and did not resemble at all the lean midfield machine that had occupied the heart of Bayern’s midfield for over a decade.
Even Van Gaal himself seemed underwhelmed by Schweinsteiger’s performances and felt that the veteran could have upped his performances at United. Speaking in December 2015, the Dutchman said:
The reason why we have bought Schweinsteiger is because he’s a player who can lead and guide a team.
It’s not just because of his football abilities that we bought him. Until now we haven’t seen the best of Schweinsteiger, the player I saw at Bayern Munich.
I believe that in every match we have played he could have played better.
Schweinsteiger then tore a medial ligament in his knee during an FA Cup win over Sheffield United in January. It put him on the sidelines for two months and when he returned he went straight back into the side only for the Fußballgott to repeat the injury while on international duty with Germany in March.
Those two injuries ruled him out of all but two of United’s Premier League games after the turn of the year, and his attitude during his spell on the sidelines didn’t help matters. Instead of focusing on rehabilitation at Carrington, he was given extensive time off, which he spent globe-trotting and watching now-wife Ana Ivanovic play tennis, which reportedly irked several of his teammates.
The problems were compounded at the start of this season. Out went Van Gaal and in came José Mourinho, who saw the midfielder as an opportune target for him to demonstrate his power upon taking over at Old Trafford.
The 32-year-old was given the cold shoulder by Mourinho, banished to the reserves and written off in the club’s accounts at one point, but he would go on to ride out the situation, maintaining his professionalism and refused to rise above Mourinho’s treatment.
By October, with United suffering an injury crisis of sorts in midfield, Schweinsteiger returned to training with the first-team. Mourinho’s stance had softened. Word from Carrington was that the veteran had turned his act round, got his head down, worked hard and wanted to prove Mourinho wrong.
The story would take another twist. Schweinsteiger returned to the fold, coming off the bench in the last few minutes of United’s EFL Cup win against West Ham, and got a hero’s welcome. It was his first appearance at Old Trafford since March.
Then came another cameo appearance against Reading in the FA Cup and a start in the same competition when Wigan visited, scoring a goal in the process. One final outing would come, playing the last half hour in the second leg of the Europa League victory against Saint-Etienne in late February.
He even returned to the club’s balance sheet, as United’s quarterly figures were revealed in February. However, in reality, the situation hadn’t changed much. The Reds were still looking for suitors to take Schweinsteiger off the wage bill and the lack of any Premier League game time was telling.
While he had fought his way back into Mourinho’s plans, he was a squad player at best. Mourinho would not trust him with the nitty-gritty of Premier League football and only wanted to keep the German until the end of the season, with United facing a tiring run-in.
But the Chicago Fire, who have now acquired Schweinsteiger’s services, were reportedly desperate to get the deal over the line with the MLS season already three matches in and needing a marquee name to get the job done. With the threat of the offer disappearing in the summer, United acquiesced to the Fire’s demands and the Deutsche Fußballmeister’s days in Manchester have ended.
“I wish I could have done more,” said Schweinsteiger in his heartfelt message for his adoring United fans. In hindsight, everyone may have done things differently, but Guardiola’s comments in the summer of 2015 were foreboding.
Schweinsteiger was the player that United needed, but the player that United purchased was one on the decline. United sorely needed the Schweinsteiger of old – the rampaging machine that won the German Footballer of the Year in 2013, the player that delivered a man of the match performance for the ages against Argentina in the World Cup final in 2014. They didn’t need another club ambassador, an ageing player on a steep decline from the peak of his powers.