Bastian Schweinsteiger has told FourFourTwo that he always had a good relationship with Jose Mourinho – and the decision to freeze him out of the first team at Manchester United may not have been solely down to the manager.
Schweinsteiger moved to Old Trafford from Bayern Munich in the summer of 2015, linking up again with Louis van Gaal, who had managed him at the Allianz Arena.
His first season at Manchester United was curtailed by injury, before Mourinho replaced Van Gaal as boss at the end of the campaign.
At that point, Schweinsteiger has revealed that he was instructed that he was banned from first-team training, to his total confusion.
He explained to FourFourTwo that maybe his decision towards the end of the previous season to have treatment for a knee injury in Germany – with permission from Van Gaal – had inadvertently irked the club.
“I must say, I always had a pretty good relationship with Jose Mourinho,” Schweinsteiger stressed. “When we spoke, it was very respectful. I really liked his character.”
The midfielder had previously played under Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich, and there have since been suggestions that Mourinho didn’t want him because he’d been trained to play in Guardiola’s very different style.
Schweinsteiger isn’t convinced that was the reason he was frozen out, though. “I don’t know, maybe it was also a decision by the board,” he said.
“You need to understand: I injured my knee the season before, I said I was going to have my treatment in Manchester, then the same injury happened again and the Euros were coming up, so I asked the club and Louis van Gaal if I could have the treatment in Germany.
“For a player, the most important thing is to be healthy and to come back as soon as possible. That was my goal, so I decided it like that, but it was not a decision against Manchester United.”
Schweinsteiger also revealed that Mourinho later said sorry to him for the way things turned out. The midfielder didn’t play a single Premier League game during his final season at the club, but did make four fleeting appearances in cup competitions.
“He apologised to me later,” Schweinsteiger said. “I gave him a handshake and said ‘All good, don’t worry’.
“I would’ve liked to have played more, definitely, and with Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, because with those two players I think we could have achieved much more.
“But I’m grateful to the supporters for the way they welcomed me when I had the chance to play.
“My dream was to play at Old Trafford again and it happened after a while, after training on my own, or with the under-19s or under-17s. Playing at Old Trafford again really meant a lot to me.”
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