Bastian Schweinsteiger is not in the habit of appearing in the media. Since he retired a little over four years ago, the former German midfielder has rarely spoken in public, especially about his experience during foreign engagements. However, in Gary Neville’s ‘The Overlap’ show, the 39-year-old spoke in detail about his term at Old Trafford.A term that ended ingloriously. In an almost fifty-minute interview, Schweinsteiger revealed that Jose Mourinho excluded him from the team without a valid reason. The German suspects that it was done to drive the midfielder out of the club, in agreement with the club leaders.##EDITORS_CHOICE##The popular Schweiny came to United from Bayern in the summer of 2015 and in the first season, under the leadership of Louis van Gaal, he was an important cog, playing 31 games. However, in the next campaign he played only four, none of them in the Premier League. Everything, as he says, went downhill in the summer of 2016 when he returned from the national team after the European Championship.”It was the pre-season of 2016, I was with the German national team, we reached the semi-finals of the European Championship, so later when I appeared at the club, the team was already on the American tour. When I arrived, I trained with Zlatan Ibrahimović and I thought that it’s great because he’s a player with vision and it’s great to play with him. The next day, on my birthday, when I walked into Carrington (United’s training centre), John Murtough (sporting director) was there and told me I wasn’t allowed to enter the locker room, because the coach said so. I didn’t know why it was like that. Someone could have told me in a normal way, but I thought okay and went to the youth team’s locker room and trained with the U16 team,” the former Bayern player recalled.Ten Hag didn’t want him and he tops the UCL assist columnAnd then the Portuguese expert explained to him what it was all about.”I asked him (Murtough) if I could talk to the coach in the afternoon when I got back from training, which I did very poorly because I didn’t know what was going on, thinking it was a joke, and then I met him in the evening ( (Mourinho). He explained to me that he noticed that I was not happy at United, because while I was injured, I did my recovery with German doctors, spending time in Germany.”The German claims that he made such an agreement with the previous coach Louis van Gaal.”Of course, I went back to United and was in touch with the doctors, I watched the games. I had a conversation with Louis van Gaal when he was the coach and he told me to come to United at the weekend and stay in touch with the doctors, because I they needed me healthy for the cup final that I almost played in. That was our deal and I stuck to it. I just wanted to be healthy so I could play and I stuck to the deal I made with Van Gaal, but obviously the management had a slightly different opinion about it. I was the only one who was transferred to a different locker room. After that I trained with the fitness coach. They never let me train with the rest of the squad, I guess they wanted to get rid of me.”##NAJAVA_MECA_8045381##Schweinsteiger claims that the situation he found himself in did not affect his mood too much.”Then I was still happy at United, I loved wearing the shirt. I thought maybe it was just a momentary situation, that I would train, be healthy and maybe one day he would change his mind. My dream has always been to step out to Old Trafford.”He rarely saw his teammates during that season.”I didn’t see them, sometimes I would pass one of them or I would get a text. They told me they didn’t understand his decision, but I didn’t see them, I trained in the morning or after them so I couldn’t see them,” said Schweinsteiger.
