And unlike Europe, where Schweinsteiger regularly concealed his identity under the bill of a baseball cap, Chicago has largely afforded him a welcome level of anonymity. While he remains recognizable to soccer fans or others who spot him walking with his wife, the retired tennis champion Ana Ivanovic, Schweinsteiger said he found comfort in being able to move about his new city in ways that were often unrealistic in his previous soccer stops at Bayern Munich and Manchester United.

He feels, he says, at home.

“It was always a case that wherever my job was, that was my home,” Schweinsteiger said. “Of course, when I touch down in Germany and I’m close to my parents’ house, you feel like you grew up there, you were born there. You always say, ‘That’s my home.’ But I always say that Chicago is my home place now.”

“You have your spots,” he added. “You just have to find them.”

Schweinsteiger’s Chicago embrace has not been lost on his teammates, and together this season they have engineered one of Major League Soccer’s biggest turnarounds. The Fire, the league’s worst team the last two years, have spent time in first place this season and have the league’s second-best record heading into Wednesday night’s M.L.S. All-Star Game at Soldier Field. Last week, Schweinsteiger won an online vote that will see him serve as captain for the league’s team against Real Madrid.

More important, at least to teammates like Dax McCarty, who plays beside Schweinsteiger in the Chicago midfield and will join him in the All-Star Game, the most appealing thing about Schweinsteiger — for all his talent and global pedigree, for all the trophies he has won in Europe — is that he has quickly become one of the guys.