Schweinsteiger shares details about time at Manchester United

Fire midfielder, DP, and World Cup winner Bastian Schweinsteiger opened up to ESPN’s Taylor Twellman about his 18 months at Manchester United in an interview at Toyota Park this week.

Here are some of the highlights from the conversation the two had:

Does he regret his decision to move to United?

No, absolutely not. I remember when Louis Van Gaal was calling me, and he wanted to have success as quick as possible. In my first year, we won the FA Cup. We actually had a great start. We were first, or second, with Leicester, and we’re actually close to them. Then I was a little bit unlucky with two injuries. You can’t really do something when someone kicks you. It happens. I was a little bit unlucky. I played the Euros. I managed to play the Euros. And later on when I came to Manchester the situation was different. The opinion was a little bit different. It was not easy for me, but I always had a dream to play again for United and to play in Old Trafford. Then I got the chance to play some minutes, but it was not enough for me. I like the game too much to not play. It is not a good feeling.

Why did Mourinho treat Basti so poorly?

I had a talk with him. And he had an opinion, maybe it was not made by himself. I think after I trained and I played, and he could see me, how I behave as a professional, he has a different opinion. It was a little bit unfortunate.

Was this treatment unfair?

In my eyes, it was of course not the right position. In life, sometimes you have these kind of situations where [things] are sometimes not correct in your way, in your view, but you have to accept it. And I accepted it. I said, “OK I accept it, but I still want to stay here and want to train. I want to show that I’m a player who he can trust.” And that’s what I was doing in Manchester. I was training with the first team. I was playing with the first team.

Schweinsteiger went on to discuss how he never gave up, and that he really did want to play for United—highlighting the fact that he eventually got back into the team and scored the following (tasty) goal against Wigan in the FA Cup:

Basti’s interview with Twellman can be seen here.