Amy

Me

I wanna talk about Bastian Schweinsteiger. I wanna talk about how Mourinho essentially dumped him by August, tried to ship him off. I wanna talk about how he refused to go, forced his stay, told everyone that all he wanted to do was to play for United, regardless of what the manager was going to do with him. I wanna talk about his unwavering dedication to United, his tweets supporting us every single game, cheering the boys on, celebrating our wins and mourning our losses like a team player, even though we didn’t deserve this niceness, even though he would have been absolutely within his rights to not care about us anymore. But every. single. game. he was there to say ‘let’s go, lads’, to offer his unconditional encouragement. I wanna talk about how he was forced to train with the kids, this man who’s played for years, won a football world cup, has more experience than so many people in the squad, and did it. How he buckled down and got on with it. The last player to go through this at United - Victor Valdes - was not great, and unprofessionalism on both sides resulted in bad feeling and eventual fallout. But Bastian Schweinsteiger! Trains like he’s fighting for a place, like he believes he will get back into the first team if he works hard. Never gives up. Never thinks I’m never going to play again, I might as well not bother. Never throws a hissy fit or a strop or shades or questions the manager. It would have been so easy to start a fight with Mourinho, and hardly anyone would have blamed him for it, but he didn’t. He proved him wrong the best way - through being the amazing player everyone knows he is. I wanna talk about Bastian Schweinsteiger, whose professionalism and determination and sheer hard work has led to ninety minutes and a goal and is an inspiration, honestly, an example to old dogs everywhere that you can be kicked but you don’t have to let yourself be thrown out. His unfailing optimism. His painstaking dedication. His neverending faith. His incredible professionalism. His unwavering belief. I wanna talk about Bastian Schweinsteiger.