Jose Mourinho apologises to Schweinsteiger
Jose Mourinho has issued a heartfelt apology to Bastian
Schweinsteiger for the manner in which he brought about the German star’s
departure from Manchester United.
Schweinsteiger finally left Old Trafford this week, signing
a deal with the MLS side Chicago Fire after failing to secure regular first
team football under Mourinho.
The 32-year-old has played just four times since the
Portuguese manager took over at Old Trafford last year, following on from an
injury-plagued debut season under Louis van Gaal.
Mourinho, however, now accepts he was wrong to isolate the
popular veteran from his squad and would act differently if he had the chance
to make the decision again.
“I do regret it, yeah,” Mourinho said on Friday. “What would
I do different? I would let him be in the squad.
“I knew in that moment we had too many players. If you
remember we had many players in a doubtful situation.
“But after knowing him as a professional and as a person,
the way he was behaving and the way he was respecting my decisions as a manager,
yes I regret, and it is no problem for me admitting it and he knows that
because I told him.
“What I knew about him was a season full of injuries, a
season where he almost didn’t play, a season where he was having treatment
outside of the club, and I thought that was not right, the mentality was not
right.
“It was the kind of player who I would not like to have in
the club.”
Van Gaal paid Bayern £14.4 million ($17.9 million, 16.7
million euros) for Schweinsteiger in 2015 but he rarely showed even glimpses of
the form that had made him such a feared midfielder.
– Cult status –
The German still retained cult status among United
supporters, even though the sum total of his league appearances for the club
amount to 13 starts and five substitute appearances over nearly two full
campaigns.
However, Mourinho conceded he did not handle the situation
well and was unfair in his treatment of the veteran.
As way of an apology, Mourinho allowed him to leave for the
United States this week, even though the United manager admits he could have
used his services in Manchester over the remaining weeks of a busy season.
“He is in the category of players I feel sorry for something
I did to him,” said Mourinho.
“I don’t want to speak about him as a player I would or
would not buy. I want to speak about him as a professional, as a human being.
“It was the last thing I told him before he left -– I was
not right with you once, I have to be right to you now.
“So when he was asking me to let him leave, I had to say
yes, you can leave because I did it once, I cannot do it twice.
“I could not stop him to go, even though I know we have so
many matches and probably would need him for a few matches or a few periods.
“So I feel sorry for the first period with him, he knows
that, I am happy that he knows, because I told him.
“I will miss a good guy, a good pro, a very good influence
in training. But I had to let him go and now publicly wish him and his wife a
very happy life in Chicago.”
AFP
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