Schweinsteiger to Man U
July 12, 2015
Fans of the reigning three-time Bundesliga champions are none too happy that the 30-year-old Schweinsteiger, whom many consider to be the personification of the modern-day Bayern Munich, is shuffling off to Albion in search of the proverbial "new challenge." Tens of thousands of them booed and whistled at the presentation of next season's squad when Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge announced the midfielder's departure.
The fans' disappointment is understandable when one considers that "Schweini," as he's affectionately known, is Bavarian born and bred and never played for another club. Even Philipp Lahm spent two years out on loan, whereas Schweinsteiger has been a fixture at Säbener Street since he was 13 years old.
For that reason, Germany's leading football newspaper kicker concluded that Bayern were losing "more than just a player."
Rummenigge, other Bayern decision-makers and the player himself have been at pains to portray the transfer as Schweinsteiger's own decision, to which the club reluctantly acceded, rather than an instance of a team giving the boot to an over-the-hill fan favorite.
But the German sports media, in particular Spiegel news magazine, has been skeptical about that storyline. Indeed, there are good reasons to think that club bosses and Bayern coach Pep Guardiola may not be all that sad about Schweinsteiger's English adventure.
New challenge or career twilight?
Schweinsteiger, who turns turns 31 in August, may be only a year removed from a career-defining performance in Germany's win over Argentina in the final of 2014 World Cup. But there are signs that time is beginning to catch up with him after 342 Bundesliga matches.
Schweinsteiger got injured in a pre-season tour of the US ahead of the 2014-15 campaign and didn't play until round 12. All told he competed in only 20 Bundesliga matches, coming on in four of them as a late substitute. He was also ineffectual in Bayern's biggest test of the Champions League, a 3-0 loss to Barcelona in the first leg of their semifinal, which sealed the Bavarians' exit from the competition.
In Xabi Alonso, Bayern already have one veteran midfielder who lacks pace but offers the ability to serve as a level-headed metronome. In Javi Martinez and Thiago Alcantara, they have two midfield motors who are considerably younger than Schweinsteiger. All three of those players are Spanish and reportedly enjoy a better relationship with Guardiola than the German.
A number of German sports journalists have pointed out that as the captain of the German national team, Schweinsteiger could even have represented a potential problem, had Guardiola relegated him too often to the bench at Bayern. Perhaps for that reason, Germany coach Joachim Löw has been conspicuously upbeat about Schweinsteiger moving on late in his career.
"I'm convinced that the new impulse of the Premier League will be good for Basti," Löw said. "I know that he still has major ambitions and goals. I'm sure he'll face the new challenge in England the way we're accustomed to seeing from him - with passion and totally motivated."
The pressure's on Pep
Manchester United finished a distant fourth in the Premier League last season and are in the midst of a near comprehensive - and very expensive - overhaul. Schweinsteiger knows the Red Devils' coach Louis van Gaal from the latter's two years at the helm of Bayern from 2009 to 2011. So the German can reasonably expect to be granted a bit of a honeymoon period at his new workplace.
That's not necessarily the case for Guardiola, who took over Bayern in 2013 after a historic triple. The Bavarians repeated as Bundesliga and German Cup champions in his first season and "only" won the domestic league in 2014-15. That was acceptable given the raft of injuries the club had to overcome in the last campaign. But everyone from the fans on up to Rummenigge expect more from the Catalan's third season in charge.
The 2012-13 triple winners were a team that still very much bore van Gaal's stamp. Allowing Schweinsteiger to leave is a watershed moment in the dismantling of that group in favor of Guardiola's more international squad with its Spanish core.
If Bayern deliver the goods, there won't be any carping about management's lack of effort to ink Schweini to a contract extension. If the results don't come, however, expect the murmurs of dissatisfaction with Pep you can already hear amongst some Bayern traditionalists to turn into a howl of protest.