Bayern Munich drops another Schweinsteiger

Bayern Munich have announced today that Tobias Schweinsteiger, the elder brother of local hero Bastian Schweinsteiger, will be parting ways with the club. The 36-year old Tobias made waves a little over a year ago when he aced his coaching license exams; no easy task for anyone who seeks to be a soccer coach under the DFB umbrella. In fact, the only other person to ever score as well was former Dortmund manager and current Paris Saint-Germain boss, Thomas Tuchel. To say that his star was on the rise is an understatement, so what the heck happened?

Following his undistinguished playing career, and with perfect scores in hand, Bayern had hired Tobias to be an assistant with the U-23 team. It was assumed that he would be groomed to climb the coaching ranks with Bayern given his familiarity with the club and the panache his name holds around Bavaria. Unfortunately, events outside his control conspired against him.

First off was Tim Walter leaving to be head coach at Holstein Kiel in the Bundesliga 2, a couple rungs up from Regionaliga Bayern, the fourth tier in German soccer and where the Bayern U-23 team currently plays. Bayern, rather than promote Tobi to the new vacancy, promoted Holger Seitz from the U-19 team who is bringing in his own assistants. With Miroslav Klose coming in to be head coach of the U-17 team, there remained no new head coach openings within Bayern’s ranks. And for Tobias to get his full coaching license to one day move into the Bundesliga as a head coach, he has to be a head coach at one of the lower tiers first.

While this isn’t an outright firing from Bayern; the door is certainly left open for him to return at some point, it is a shame to see such a promising coaching prospect leave the club. Perhaps it’s best for Tobias to leave the nest and cut his teeth in coaching a smaller club, perhaps in the Regionaliga. Even Tuchel had to start his coaching career with the U-19 team at Stuttgart and was there for five years before he got to move to Augsburg’s reserve team. Tobi’s accomplishments throughout the licensing process still give him some notoriety, so one thing is for sure; he won’t be out of work for long.