Bastian Schweinsteiger claims that the Pep Guardiola tenure at Bayern Munich is one reason for Germany’s deteriorating results at the international level.
The former Manchester United and Bayern Munich player believes the mindset of Manchester City’s manager is largely to blame for the decline in traditional German football principles over the past ten years.
Serial winner Guardiola joined Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich from Barcelona in 2013 while Schweinsteiger was there, where he went on to win three league titles and two German Cups.
Schweinsteiger, though, thinks his former Bayern Munich manager may have had a negative impact on the Germany squad.
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“Well it’s a situation that’s very tricky for the German national team and football in general,” the former midfielder said to talkSPORT when asked why his country have struggled.
“I think there has been a lot of change. You know when Pep Guardiola joined Bayern Munich when he came to the country, everyone believed we had to play this kind of football, like short passes and everything.
“We were kind of losing our values you know.
“I think most of the other countries were looking at Germany as a fighter and we can run until the end and everything.”
Following their fourth World Cup win in 2014, the Germans then went on to make the semi-finals of the 2016 European Championships.
However, the 2018 World Cup marked the beginning of the decline, as the reigning champions were booted out in the group stages.
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Euro 2020 saw them only reach the Round of 16 too. Furthermore, at the Qatar 2022 World Cup, they failed to qualify for the knockout stages.
However, despite Guardiola being at Bayern when Germany won the World Cup, Schweinsteiger believes it’s his former manager that has changed the country’s style of play.
“The strengths, through the last seven, eight years, we forgot about that,” the 38-year-old explained.
“We were more focused on playing the ball nicely to each other and that’s one of the reasons.”
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