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| Bastian Schweinsteiger via santabanta |
He wrote a letter to the German fans. At the end of the letter, Basti conveys a message to the fans, "It's an honor to play for you guys, thank you for everything that we can experience together."
This news was certainly surprising for the fans, players, and observers of German football. His contribution in 120 appearances along with Die Mannschaft was a demonstration of the totality of the Fussballgott.
And, it finally paid the totality of the highest when the German national team won the 2014 World Cup.
Before deciding to focus on pursuing a career in football, Basti was known to be very good at skiing. He even quite often beat his childhood friend Felix Neureuther who became the silver medalist of 2013 world ski championships.
However, the offer to play with Bayern Munich's hard to be rejected and finally since 2001, he forgot the dream to become a skier.
The options become a professional football player not in vain. In Bundesliga, he won the championship title eight times. If it continues to fail to win a world title and the Champions League may be the nickname of the "nearly man" could continue to be pinned on him.
A player like Basti was expected to reach the highest level with the club and country. However, the competition at the top level is certainly far from easy. In fact, two "aliens", Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi can not just achieve success with the national team.
Ronaldo finally succeeded at the level of the European Cup while Messi has retired from international football after losing four times in the final with the Tango team.
At club level, Basti must feel twice a bitter defeat in the final of the Champions League before finally becoming a champion in the 2012/2013 season.
Even at that season, he was able to achieve a treble winner with FC Bayern. With the national team, he had to undergo some failures before finally emerged as the winner in the Maracana Stadium.
His debut with the national team in inter-state tournament started at Euro 2004. The results were very disappointing. Germany immediately froze out in the group phase. At the 2006 World Cup in Germany, Bastian Schweinsteiger and his friends defeated in the semi-final from Italy.
Germany can only console themselves with the third place after beating Portugal. In the match, Basti scored two goals. Although it failed to win in their own country, the German public still providing exceptional appreciation to the players at the Brandenburg Gate.
Shortly after winning the 2014 World Cup, Basti commemorated in 2006, "The fans showed a love so great to us that day in Berlin, and now we can reply to them completely."
The painful journey continues for Basti along German national team. Spanish conquered them in the next two golden opportunities, namely at the final of Euro 2008 and the semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. At Euro 2012, Italy's turn that ruined the German hope to win the trophy.
Then came the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Germany came up with the squad depth plus a good engaging composition of senior and junior players. Many people make Germany as a strong candidate champions.
However, during the preparation for the tournament, some players were not in a fit condition including Basti. He did not play at the first game contra Portugal.
In the next game against Ghana, Basti started to play in the 70th minute replacing Sami Khedira. The Fussballgott appeared as a starter in the last game of the group phase against the United States. It also did not appear 90 minutes.
Slowly but surely, Bastian Schweinsteiger was getting closer to peak performance in the tournament. After passing through Algeria, France, and Brazil in the knockout round, Germany arrives at the top of the party against teams from Latin America, Argentina. There has never been a European team that won the World Cup in Latin America up to that time.
Speaking about the final, of course, involved not only the purely physical readiness. Mental preparation can be more important for a top party. Focus magazine asked about the pressure felt Basti before the final match.
It's reasonable if a lot of people judge that the pressure faced by Basti and some senior players were certainly very high. They have always failed in previous tournaments. And it could be, for the senior players, the 2014 World Cup was the last chance to win the world champion title.
However, Basti replied, "I grew up in Säbener Strasse (the headquarters of FC Bayern) and trained to have the attitude of wanting to win in every game. Pressure is normal for me. "And he was, as usual, showing the totality in the field, as if the play without the burden of past failures.
His performance was so heroic in the final match. The blood had flowed at the bottom of his eye after a clash with the hands of Sergio Aguero. Joachim Löw asked Kevin Grosskreutz to do warming up for the possibility Basti should be pulled out.
However, a player born in Kolbermoor decided to continue the game until the end. Schweinsteiger ran as far as 15 km along the historic match, surpassing other players who also play that day.
Shortly after the tournament was finished, some senior players including his friend, Philipp Lahm declared retirement from the national team. The captain's armband was handed to Schweinsteiger. But unfortunately, injuries hit him back in the 2015/2016 season and made him unable to perform optimally in Euro 2016.
However, this does not diminish the respect of the fans against him. There is only one word that deserves spoken to him after 12 years of his career with Die Mannschaft: Danke.
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