Mourinho makes a rare admission of his mistake

When Jose Mourinho first joined Manchester United, he relegated Bastian Schweinsteiger to train with the Reserves immediately. He told the press there was no place for the German in the squad and was clearly trying to push Schweinsteiger out of the club.

The transfer window closed and Schweinsteiger was still at United, so Mourinho refused to play him or include him in our Europa League squad.

Throughout this time, Schweinsteiger remained committed to earning his place back and didn’t say a bad word against the club or manager.

However, Mourinho eventually relented, bringing Schweinsteiger on for the last four minutes of our 4-1 win over West Ham in the League Cup. He played in a further three games, all in cup competitions, and even scored against Wigan in the FA Cup in January.

After allowing Schweinsteiger to move to Chicago Fire on a free transfer, Mourinho has made a rare admission of guilt, and acknowledged he was wrong to treat the player as he did.

“He’s in the category of players that I feel sorry for something that I did to him,” the manager said. “I don’t want to speak about him as a player, I don’t want to speak as I buy or not to buy. I want to speak about him as a professional, as a human being.

“The last thing I told him before he left: ‘I was not right with you once, I have to be right with 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. 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 professional, a good influence in training – a very good influence.”

Asked if he regrets the way he treated him, Mourinho added: “Yeah, I do.”