Thomas Hein
When Bastian Schweinsteiger joined Manchester United from Bayern Munich, many believed it was a coup for us as we were still transitioning into the Louis van Gaal era after a bit of a downer under David Moyes.
Schweinsteiger and Van Gaal had worked together at Bayern and it was expected that the pair would hit it off again, especially since the German midfielder had signed a three-year deal at Old Trafford.
That fell apart right after Van Gaal was sacked a year later and with Jose Mourinho coming in, Schweinsteiger was left out in the cold, frozen out from the first-team. The German was even written off as an asset of the club in their accounts, which might have dented his chances of moving to a bigger club.
The German did end up moving to the MLS but his former manager, Van Gaal, has now spoken out about the treatment meted out to the former captain of Bayern Munich.
The former Manchester United manager was quoted by Sport Bild (h/t talkSport),
“Schweinsteiger was, of course, older but not too old. His body was not able to keep up with the high demands of Premier League.
“Bayern sold him to us as fit player, but, in fact, physically he had reached the end. How Mourinho treated him after me, Schweini did not deserve this. But it explains the situation, how it stood with Schweinsteiger.
“It’s a shame because he is a player like Luis Enrique, Mark van Bommel or Philipp Lahm – the guys who always present on the pitch.”
Bastian joined Chicago Fire and even though he didn’t turn any heads around in the Premier League, he still was an experienced player and would have been able to do a job for us, especially with regards to our problems in midfield.
His experience would have been handy for a number of our players but one thing is a given, we cannot blame Schweinsteiger for not giving 100% to the club. The German’s stint might not have worked out for us in the end but we did get to see one of the best players in the world and hopefully, he won’t have any pent up feelings like Van Gaal does.
