Bastien Schweinsteiger believes that Pep Guardiola's spell in charge of Bayern Munich is one of the reasons behind Germany's decline on the international scene.
The 38-year-old spent 13 years of his illustrious playing career with the Bavarian giants and worked under Guardiola during the final two years between 2013 and 2015 before joining Manchester United.
After four hugely-successful years in charge of boyhood club Barcelona, Guardiola managed Bayern for three season and won seven trophies including three Bundesliga titles and two German Cups.
The Catalan boss has continued his managerial success with Manchester City where he has lifted 14 trophies during a seven-year spell with the Citizens, including a historic Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League treble last season.
Guardiola's hunger to win trophies and unique philosophy has earned plenty of plaudits from fellow coaches, players, pundits and fans across the world and he is widely regarded as one of, if not the, greatest manager of the modern era.
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However, Schweinsteiger believes that the influence of his former boss Guardiola has contributed to the recent decline in fortunes of the German national team.
Discussing Germany's current predicament in an interview with talkSPORT, the 121-cap international said: "Well it's a situation that's very tricky for the German national team and football in general.
"I think there has been a lot of change. You know when Pep Guardiola joined Bayern Munich when he came to the country, everyone believed we had to play this kind of football, like short passes and everything.
"We were kind of losing our values you know. I think most of the other countries were looking at Germany as a fighter and we can run until the end and everything."
Schweinsteiger added: "The strengths, through the last seven, eight years, we forgot about that. We were more focused on playing the ball nicely to each other and that's one of the reasons (for Germany's decline)."
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Germany won the 2014 World Cup during Guardiola's reign at Bayern Munich, but they have since been eliminated at the group stage in the last two World Cups, while they were knocked out by England in the last 16 of Euro 2020.
Die Mannschaft were coached by Joachim Low for 15 years between 2006 and 2021, before Hansi Flick was named as his replacement after deciding to leave Bayern.
However, Flick's future is already being questioned having endured a difficult start to life in the dugout, with only Erich Ribbeck – who won just 10 of his 24 games in charge between 1998 and 2000 – having a worse record as Germany manager than Flick (12 wins, seven draws and five defeats in 24 matches).
Germany, who will host Euro 2024, have won only four of their last 16 internationals over the last 16 months and they have slipped down to 15th in the FIFA world ranking behind the likes of the USA, Switzerland, Morocco and Mexico.
The four-time world champions drew 3-3 with Ukraine in their 1,000th international match last month before losing friendly games to both Poland and Colombia without reply, and they are next scheduled to face Japan in a friendly fixture on September 9.
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