Pep Guardiola is the reason why the German national team is failing.

That shock assessment comes from former Bayern Munich and Manchester United star Bastian Schweinsteiger, who was asked by talkSPORT why the four-time world champions have become flops on the national stage. 

In last year's World Cup Hansi Flick's team were kicked out at the group stage for the second successive time and subsequently have not won any of the last four internationals, suffering a 2-0 home defeat by Colombia just a fortnight ago. 

Schweinsteiger, 38, said: "It's a situation that's very tricky for the German national team and football in general. 

"There has been a lot of change. 

"When Pep Guardiola joined Bayern Munich [as manager in 2013-14] — when he came to the country — everyone believed we have to play his kind of football, passes and everything. We were kind of losing our values.

"Most of the other countries were looking at Germany as a fighter, we can run until the end and everything. 

"Those strengths got lost through the last seven, eight years.

"We forgot about that and became more focused on playing the ball nicely to each other and that’s one of the reasons."

The future is not exactly looking bright either. 

Germany's youngsters finished bottom of their group in the recent European Under-21 Championship in Georgia and Romania, failing to win any of their three games. 

Guardiola will be pleased to hear it is not all his fault though. 

Schweinsteiger added: "I'm just trying to explain in one or two sentences but obviously I could take longer."