Pep Guardiola won the Bundesliga in all three of his seasons at Bayern Munich, but Bastian Schweinsteiger thinks a stylistic clash may have been part of the reason why he never won the Champions League at the club.
Guardiola has managed only three clubs during his career – winning the Champions League twice with Barcelona, and once with Manchester City, but never quite achieving the feat at Bayern.
The Catalan arrived at the Allianz Arena immediately after the club had become European champions under Jupp Heynckes in 2013, having also reached the final in 2010 and 2012.
During all three of Guardiola’s seasons in Germany though, Bayern lost in the semi-finals.
Schweinsteiger was there for the first two of those campaigns – while being full of admiration for the manager’s abilities, he admits it was difficult for Guardiola to arrive immediately after such great success, then attempt to implement his own style of play.
“He wanted to change something – not easy, because he came after we won the Treble,” Schweinsteiger said, in an interview for the latest issue of FourFourTwo magazine.
“We were the best team in Europe, then Guardiola – as the best coach in Europe – came and wanted to give us a new signature.
“We learned a lot playing for him, and he’s fantastic at finding solutions during a game.
“There were a few situations at half-time where he told us ‘Come on, Basti, you put the ball there; Thomas (Muller), run there; it will work, 100 per cent'. We did it – boom, goal. He’s a genius.
“But it wasn’t easy for him in Munich because we had had huge success beforehand. We had reached the Champions League final three times in four years, and won it in 2013.
“Under Guardiola, we always won the league by far, but we couldn’t quite win the Champions League.”
Still a Bayern legend, Schweinsteiger has since spoken to fans about Guardiola’s reign.
“In Munich, people like it when they see a certain style of football – that’s their DNA,” he said.
“When I speak to supporters, they tell me that when Jupp Heynckes was the coach, they could feel that it was Bayern’s DNA. We also defended – we didn’t always attack and have ball possession.
“People said ‘Guardiola: a great coach, but we couldn’t feel our DNA in his game’. That sounds very strange, but maybe it was a little bit of a problem sometimes.
“Then in the semis of the Champions League, small things make a difference, and you either reach the final or you don’t.”
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