July 7 – Manchester City’s treble-winning manager Pep Guardiola has been partially blamed for the recent decline of the Germany national team.
Former German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger told British radio station Talksport that Germany lost some of their values because of the way the Spaniard coached during his time in the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich.
“When Pep Guardiola joined Bayern, when he came to the country, everyone believed we have to play this kind of football, like short passes and everything. We were kind of losing our values,” said Schweinsteiger who played under Guardiola for two seasons.
It was a trophy-laden spell for the Bavarians including three Bundesliga titles but they lost in the semi-finals of the Champions League in each of their three seasons under Guardiola.
Schweinsteiger believes the Manchester City manager’s philosophy is partly responsible for a loss of traditional German football values over the last 10 years. Germany won the World Cup in 2014 and reached the semi-finals of Euro in 2016 but have been struggling ever since.
“I think most of the other countries were looking at Germany as a fighter, we can run until the end and everything. The strengths got lost through the last seven, eight years. We were more focused on playing the ball nicely to each other. That’s one of the reasons,” Schweinsteiger said.
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