AFTER coming back from the World Cup it was a joke he liked cracking to staff at Bayern Munich’s Sabener Strasse training ground. “Have you seen they’re making another Rambo film?” he would say. “It’s about me at the Maracana.”

Schweinsteiger was put on the turf seven times by Argentina during last year’s World Cup final in Rio De Janeiro. An elbow from Sergio Aguero left him with a gaping wound and a gush of blood under his right eye. And yet the Argentinians, even if they had chainsaws and bulldozers, were never going to quell him.

For two hours, tough, heroic Schweinsteiger dominated midfield, picking himself up every time the opposition put him down. He was the biggest single influence behind Germany’s win. It