Former Bayern Munich and Manchester United star Bastian Schweinsteiger has made a surprising statement, attributing the failure of the German national team to Pep Guardiola.
Schweinsteiger, during an interview with talkSPORT, expressed his belief that Guardiola’s influence is to blame for Germany’s recent shortcomings on the international stage.
In the previous World Cup, Germany, under the guidance of Hansi Flick, failed to progress past the group stage for the second consecutive tournament.
Since then, they have struggled to secure victories in their last four international matches, including a disheartening 2-0 loss to Colombia on home soil a mere two weeks ago.
Schweinsteiger has connected these disappointing performances to Guardiola’s impact.
Schweinsteiger, 38, said: “It’s a situation that’s very tricky for the German national team and football in general.
“There has been a lot of change.
“When Pep Guardiola joined Bayern Munich [as manager in 2013-14] — when he came to the country — everyone believed we have to play his kind of football, passes and everything. We were kind of losing our values.
“Most of the other countries were looking at Germany as a fighter, we can run until the end and everything.
“Those strengths got lost through the last seven, eight years.
“We forgot about that and became more focused on playing the ball nicely to each other and that’s one of the reasons.”
&w=707&quality=100)
The future is not exactly looking bright either.
Germany’s youngsters finished bottom of their group in the recent European Under-21 Championship in Georgia and Romania, failing to win any of their three games.
Guardiola will be pleased to hear it is not all his fault though.
Schweinsteiger added: “I’m just trying to explain in one or two sentences but obviously I could take longer.”