Former German midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger has blamed former Bayern Munich head coach Pep Guardiola for the German national team’s recent decline.
Guardiola — who managed Bayern for three years —won three consecutive Bundesliga titles, two DFB-Pokal, FIFA Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup, ending his three-year tenure at the German club on a high note.
However, following his tiki-taka philosophy, Guardiola transformed the Bavarians into a possession-based side, who, once were known as one of the most deadly counter-attacking teams.
Schweinsteiger, 38, believes that the Spaniard played his part in the downfall of Germany’s national team as everyone started to play one kind of football.
“When Pep Guardiola joined Bayern Munich, when he came to the country, everyone believed we have to play this kind of football, like short passes and everything,” ' Schweinsteiger told talkSPORT. “We were kind of losing our values.”
The 38-year-old played for two seasons under Guardiola and left the club in 2015 for Manchester United.
“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 forgot about that and were more focused on playing the ball nicely to each other. That's one of the reasons,” Schweinsteiger said of Germany's decline since 2016.
It must be noted that Germany — who won the FIFA World Cup 2014 against Argentina — reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Euro 2016 but were a disappointment in major tournaments since then.
A group-stage exit at the FIFA World Cup 2018 Russia, a round of 16 exit from Euro 2020 against England, then another group-stage exit at the World Cup in Qatar.
Joachim Low was Germany's coach who led the team to the World Cup title in 2014 with Schweinsteiger playing a key role. However, his 15-year-long tenure ended after Germany’s shambolic performance in the Euro 2020.
He was then replaced by Hansi Flick — a treble-winner with Bayern in 2020 — but Germany won only three of its 11 games last season.