Former German winger Bastian Schweinsteiger accuses Pep Guardiola of the decline of the German team. In an interview with the British radio station Talksport, the German pointed out that the Catalan coach was to blame for the crisis that Germany is going through: "When Pep Guardiola joined Bayern Munich, when he came to the country, everyone believed that we had to play this type of football , with short passes and everything. We were losing our values,” he argued.
Schweinsteiger, who works as a television commentator, played under Guardiola for two seasons at Bayern after the former Barcelona manager arrived in Munich in 2013. He left the club in 2015, while Guardiola joined Manchester City in 2016. .
“I think other countries looked at Germany as a fighter, as a team that could run to the end. The fortresses have been lost for the last seven or eight years. We forgot about that and focused more on playing the ball well against each other. That's one of the reasons," Schweinsteiger said of Germany's decline since 2016.
Joachim Löw was Germany's coach at the time and had led the team to the World Cup title in 2014 with Schweinsteiger playing a key role. Germany reached the semi-finals of Euro 2016 but have been disappointing in major tournaments ever since. The German team accumulates a series of failures, being eliminated from the 2018 World Cup in the group stage and only reaching the second round of the 2020 Euro Cup. In the last World Cup in Qatar at the end of last year, they were again knocked out of the tournament in the group stage.
Under Löw's replacement, Hansi Flick, Germany won just three of their 11 games last season. The team was booed by their own fans during and after their last game, a painful 2-0 loss at home to Colombia last month, and confidence is low ahead of the country hosting Euro 2024 next year. . Meanwhile, Guardiola has found success with City, leading the English-backed club to its first Champions League title last season.
