Bastian Schweinsteiger: The last triumph of an overcrowded career

It is the one thing to successfully play a football career. It is quite another thing to finish them successfully. Many failed. And maybe you only realize who really was a big guy.

Bastian Schweinsteiger is no longer a professional footballer. At age 35, the former Bayern player and world champion of 2014 officially ended his career. That did not come as a surprise. Some people might have been more surprised by the fact that Schweinsteiger still played football for money until Sunday.

For Chicago Fire in the US professional league MLS, he ran since 2017 - first as a six before the defense as in ancient times, then at some point as a center-back. It was the end of a journey. From the outer track, where he still up and down at the 2006 World Cup, over the epicenter of the game, in which he ordered Louis van Gaal at Bayern, into the defensive line. You have to walk less. Lothar Matthäus had already moved from front to back to Libero. And in line with Matthäus Schweinsteiger is in the gallery of German football heroes.

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Actually, Schweinsteiger had already ended his sporting career in 2017. It was a decision for private life and against top football when he moved from Manchester United to the USA - the then worst club in the MLS. For years he had made headlines in Germany. Now, at the age of 32, he sought seclusion in the football province and anonymity due to the lack of interest shown by a large part of the American public in football. He played, he married, he became a father.

Germany was always particularly interested in Schweinsteiger. Because he delivered the big stories - of big wins and big defeats. His career was full of stories: The cheeky Munich upstart who wanted to show his cousin the Bayern pool at night. The blond Posterboy, who shook up the World Cup 2006 with his buddy Lukas Podolski. The "boss" with the lack of leadership quality, who fought with a tabloid reporter. And then, of course, those of the great sufferer of German football, who nevertheless triumphed in the end.

Also by the failure to legend

His missed penalty in the Champions League final 2012, in his city of Munich, where they called him "football god". That alone could make you write a novel. Then the resurrection with the won triple a year later.

Even with the national team were facing great successes great defeats. After the semi-final against Italy at the Euro 2012 Schweinsteiger and his generation were suspected to fail, if it really is. In 2014 he proved the opposite. In the World Cup final against Argentina, he was fouled several times. He was bleeding, he suffered in the German living room, but he got up again and again. So he became the icon of the triumph of Rio.

The fact that two years later he also mutated into a tragic figure when he caused a penalty in the European Championship semi-final against France and thus ushered in the end of the German title dream, is another chapter of this storytelling career. Perhaps one can not become legend by winning alone, but also by failure. Oliver Kahn has written books about it.

Eight German championships, seven cup wins, the Triple 2013, the 2014 World Cup title, the FA Cup victory, Super Cup win, 121 internationals for the DFB. Only Matthew (150), Miroslav Klose (137) and Podolski (130) made more. Schweinsteiger also achieved best ratings internationally.

38 - No player was used more often at World and European Championships than @BSchweinsteiger. Legend. @DFB_Team pic.twitter.com/0Qt453SDcd

Schweinsteiger shook off all the stories and all the successes when he moved to the USA in 2017 and thus into the footballing irrelevance. He was already a 32-year-old in the body of a 42-year-old. He had barely played for Manchester United for a year. The years of overexploitation on his own body caused Schweinsteiger to rust like a statue of a hero someone put into the water.

Top football barely ages its icons with dignity. Schweinsteiger made it by avoiding him and still playing - for himself. Never did he pretend that something bigger was right for him. He never spoke with advice or comments on the current football events to word not to be forgotten. He just played - and seemed happy with it.

You have to be able to withstand your own loss of meaning. Schweinsteiger could. Maybe that was his last triumph as a player.