When Bastian Schweinsteiger signed with the Chicago Fire from international powerhouse Manchester United in late March, it made a giant splash. Massive crowds of cheering sections showed up to see his arrival at O’Hare International Airport. This was the biggest story in Chicago sports news since the Cubs won the World Series.
As soon as Schweinsteiger arrived, the results immediately improved.
By the time he was fully adjusted and seamlessly woven into the team, the Fire were unstoppable. In May and June, they were topping MLS power rankings.
They would come back to Earth eventually, enduring the roller coaster that comes with any season that is as extremely long as Major League Soccer’s. In August the Fire looked like they might miss out on the MLS Cup playoffs altogether.
The end result though was 55 points, the fourth most in franchise history. The Fire also earned their first playoff berth since 2012. With the Fire eliminated in the first round late last night, 4-0 by the New York Red Bulls, the 2017 campaign is over and now we need to look ahead.
Here’s what Bastian Schweinsteiger had to say post game about returning next year.
“As Nelson Rodriguez said, we are in talks, we will see, it’s the same like with any player here. But I have to say that this team did an amazing job this season, we were third in the league,”
“I know the players decide everything but you have to be realistic, before the season, if someone told you guys, ‘Chicago Fire would be third after 35 games,’ you would probably say ‘oh, no, that’s not, how would that be the case?'”
“This team really worked hard, we played very good the first half of the season. Coaching stuff, Pauno did an amazing job, you have to give a lot of credit to those, and I hope that everyone understands that.”
“I know that he talked about that our goal was to be in the playoffs; we achieved that goal and that’s great.
“Obviously, here in America it’s a little bit different with the playoffs at the end of the year but you should not forget where we came from; that’s very important, that everyone understands that we did a very good job.”
“Every player here deserves a lot of credit and I hope you recognize that and let’s see.”
It’s unfortunate that Bastian Schweinsteiger had to begin the playoff game on the bench injured, and just 13 minutes in, his side was down 2-0, a hole from which they never came even remotely close to recovering from.
It was an extremely bitter end and brutal end for the 11,000 fans (reported by MLS) as being in attendance. If you were there, or saw the game on television, then you would have noticed just how empty the stadium looked last night, especially so when compared the packed houses and electric atmospheres of the summer.
Still Schweinsteiger helped create a winning mentality.
“It’s not only me, I think every player changed the mentality of this club. The last two years, as you know, the club was in the bottom of the league,” the German midfielder said.
“Not only me, also the coach, he’s the first one actually, everyone in the club changed, the mentality changed, if you see our guys on the social media, they were working hard and helping out as much as they could.”
“That’s great to see, that a club changed.”
“Let’s see if next season, if the team stays the same, it would be great, but it’s also different than in Europe, that you have talks after the season.
“I think everyone did a great job, not only the players, not only the coaching staff, the whole club did a good job and we shouldn’t forget about it.”
Bastian Schweinsteiger also added his thoughts on what can be improved:
“You need to give the team a little bit of time. I think it was a great success, achievement what we did this season. I think we need to add maybe the one or the other piece. If you have ten steps, I think we took seven. Eight, nine, ten, that’s the hardest step. If you do this eight, nine, ten steps, then you can win titles.
“Toronto, for example, if you watch them the last three years, they did amazing example. You can do it your own way,” Schweinsteiger concluded.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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