Bastian Schweinsteiger has shared a startling revelation about his time at Manchester United, disclosing that on his 32nd birthday, manager Jose Mourinho exiled him from the first-team squad.
Instead, Schweinsteiger was relegated to training with the club’s under-16s.
Signed by Louis van Gaal a year prior, Schweinsteiger’s arrival at United was hailed, particularly given his successful stint as a central midfielder under van Gaal at Bayern Munich.
However, injuries limited his appearances during the latter half of the 2015/16 season, impacting his form heading into Euro 2016.
Upon returning for pre-season training under Mourinho’s leadership, Schweinsteiger quickly found himself marginalised, with Mourinho signalling from day one that he no longer featured in the club’s plans, leading to his demotion from the first-team setup.
“I was very sad because United was the second club of my heart. I gave a lot when I played as well, so that’s why I was sad, but I’m not the type of person to go running to the media. It’s more important for me to focus on football and behave the way I did,” the 39-year-old told Gary Neville on The Overlap.
“When I arrived on the first day, I trained with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and thought it was great—a player who has vision and is amazing to play with. The next day, on my birthday, when I walked into Carrington, [football director] John Murtough was there and said that I wasn’t allowed to walk into the dressing room—the coach had said so.