Speaking to Gary Neville on The Overlap, Bastian Schweinsteiger said: "It was [preseason] 2016 and I was with the German national team, we went far in the competition [Euros] reaching the semifinals, so I stepped in a little later [at Manchester United] and the team were in the U.S. for a preseason tour.
"I trained with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and thought it was great, a player who has the vision and is amazing to play with. The next day, on my birthday, when I walked into Carrington, [football director] John Murtough was there and said that I wasn't allowed to walk into the dressing room, the coach had said so.
"Someone could have told me there or explained it to me in a normal way, but okay, I went to the youth dressing room and trained with the Under-16s. Jose Mourinho completely [kicked me out of the first team dressing room], so I had to ask him [Murtough] to bring me my cleats and the rest of training gear.
"I asked Murtough who I was training with, and he said there was the U16 team, so I went and trained. I asked him whether I could talk to Mourinho in the afternoon, so when I came back from training with the U16s, where I trained so bad because I didn't know what was going on or it was a joke."
"I then had a meeting with Mourinho in the afternoon. He explained to me that he didn't see me happy here at Man United because when I had my injury, I did my rehab with German doctors, spending time in Germany. Of course, I came back to United and was in contact with doctors and watched the games.
"After that, I was training alone for at least three months with a fitness coach. No, Mourinho never let me train with the first team, I guess they wanted to get rid of me quickly. In that moment, I was still super happy at United, I loved to wear the jersey. I loved it. I was thinking that maybe it was just a period."
Through hard work, Schweinsteiger eventually managed to make a return to the first team under Mourinho that season, making three appearances.
The German midfielder ended up leaving to join MLS side Chicago Fire in MLS the following spring before hanging up his boots for good 2019.
