Bastian Schweinsteiger's move signals end to one of biggest lost opportunities in modern football

Farewell then Bastian Schweinsteiger. The great former Germany international is leaving Manchester United to head for Chicago Fire. Which, as one wag on Twitter pointed out, sounds more like a pizza parlour than a football club.

Thus comes to an end one of the biggest lost opportunities of modern football. Bastian Schweinsteiger and Manchester United were a match made in heaven. Just a shame the match was not completed until long after it made any rational sense.

Let’s just say when the German arrived at Old Trafford from Bayern Munich in August 2015 he was not the midfield equivalent of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. As late-flowering romances go, this was one grounded long before take-off. When he trotted out on to the pitch in United red he looked a completely different figure from the one who had dominated a Champions League encounter between the two clubs in 2010.

Five years seemed to have altered his body shape. In a pair of shorts voluminous enough to power a round-the-world catamaran, he appeared to be in possession of the biggest backside football had seen since the retirement of Clarence Seedorf. Slow, cumbersome, evidently circumscribed by injury, this was not the Schweini we remembered. He was not even the same player who had been central to Germany’s World Cup glory the previous summer. This was a ghost of what had gone before, a chimera of greatness.

But then maybe we should not have been surprised. In 2012, ahead of their Champions League final against Chelsea, Bayern’s then manager Jupp Heynckes had described Schweinsteiger as the most important player on the club roster. And this at a club which boasted the talents of Philippe Lahm, Arjen Robben, Franck Ribery and Manuel Neuer. Heynckes reckoned Schweinsteiger the engine of his side, the power, the enforcer, the leader. For ten years he had been central to everything at the club, insisting that every forward movement started with the ball at his feet. If he was that important then it was crystal clear there was no way they would ever have let him go elsewhere. He was only let loose once he was no longer of central significance.

The truth was a succession of ankle and patella injuries had curtailed the fearsome power and energy he once exuded. And however much Louis Van Gaal, his previous Bayern boss now installed at Old Trafford, hoped that his abundant spirit and determination might compensate for the diminution in his physical power, it was not to be. The very fact Bayern were willing to cash in should have been due diligence enough. The Bavarians are not in the habit of selling their best assets. They prefer to buy other people’s.

But Van Gaal, never someone who could be accused of lacking stubbornness, was not to be swayed by the physical evidence. He paid £6.5million for the player, a fee, it turned out, that worked out at more than £185,000 for each appearance he made, or £3.25million for every goal. And that is without mentioning a salary sufficient to sustain a small sub-Saharan economy.

It was a ludicrous purchase, as bad a piece of business as any even under Van Gaal. And he was the man who sanctioned £25million to be paid for Memphis Depay. Yet when Jose Mourinho replaced the Dutchman and showed his complete disdain for his predecessor’s transfer activity by making the player train with the Under 21s, a majority of United fans felt uneasy about such treatment. Despite his underwhelming contribution on the pitch, this was a player who deserved respect. A player whose assessment will forever be centred not so much on what he actually achieved as a United player as what he might have done. Like Henrik Larsson, seeing him in a United shirt was a poignant symbol of lost opportunity.

For a fully fit and firing Schweinsteiger would have brought so much to Manchester United. A 2010 vintage Schweini could have become an Old Trafford legend. You only had to witness his reaction on scoring a late winner against Watford in the Premier League in the autumn of 2015 to appreciate what he might have contributed. After stumbling the ball into the net, he gamboled along the Vicarage Road touchline in a demented jig of delight. If his play could have matched the force of his personality, this could have been the long-awaited heir to Roy Keane.

It was that enthusiasm that endeared him to the United faithful. That and his unyielding dignity in the face of Mourinho’s snub. There was no public whinging, no stomping off, no me-me-me complaining. He accepted the decision, making the point that, were the manager to soften his stance, he was always willing to fight for the cause.

It was an approach that clearly worked. From seeking to blame him personally for Van Gaal’s transfer errors, the manager came to appreciate that his positivity was good for team spirit. He was invited back into the fold and finally given his chance. Though when he made a return to the side in the FA Cup win over Wigan it was pretty clear from the way he played that Mourinho’s assessment of his ability to influence games was not an inaccurate one. While Zlatan, like a fine wine, was improving with age, Schweini’s legs had long ago turned to vinegar.

And now he has gone to the rest home for retiring greats that is the MLS, a footnote rather than the chapter he might have once been in United history.