Legendary German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger has revealed that Jose Mourinho banned him from the first-team dressing room when he was a player at Manchester United.
Schweinsteiger joined the English club in 2015 under Louis van Gaal but the Dutch manager was replaced by Mourinho in 2016 as tensions grew between the duo.
“It was [preseason] 2016 and I was with the German national team, we went far in the competition [Euros] reaching the semifinals, so I stepped in a little later [at United] and the team were in the US for a preseason tour. When I arrived on the first day, I trained with Zlatan Ibrahimović and thought it was great, a player who has the vision and is amazing to play with,” Schweinsteiger told Gary Neville on The Overlap.
“The next day, on my birthday, when I walked into [United’s training ground] Carrington, [football director] John Murtough was there and said that I wasn’t allowed to walk into the dressing room, the coach [Mourinho] had said so,” added the German.
Forced to train with under-16s
Schweinsteiger, who had already won eight Bundesliga titles, as well as the Champions League and World Cup, was perhaps the most decorated player on the United roster. However, he was forced to train with the under-16s and only allowed to use the youth dressing room.
“I asked him [Murtough] whether I could talk to the manager in the afternoon, so when I came back from training with the under 16s, where I trained so bad because I didn’t know what was going on or it was a joke. I then had a meeting with him [Mourinho] in the afternoon. He explained to me that he didn’t see me happy here at United because when I had my injury, I did my rehab with German doctors, spending time in Germany.”
According to the midfielder, he rarely saw his teammates after the incident and was slowly phased out of the team.
“It was just me [that got moved to the youth dressing room]. After that, I was training alone for at least three months with a fitness coach. I trained before and after the [first] team. No [José never let me train with the first team], I guess they wanted to get rid of me.
After the fallout with Mourinho, Schweinsteiger made just three appearances in the season but none of them came in the Premier League. He left to join Chicago Fire in MLS the following spring and eventually retired in October 2019.
Meanwhile, Mourinho was sacked after a tumultuous two-and-a-half-year stay at Old Trafford where he won the Europa League and Carabao Cup.
(With inputs from agencies)