Tobias Schweinsteiger was captain of Bayern Munich II when Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag was in charge.
That period also coincided with Manchester City's Pep Guardiola being in charge of the Bundesliga giants' first team, which means he can offer unique insight into both managers ahead of the first Manchester derby between the pair on Sunday afternoon.
Schweinsteiger is the older brother of former United midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger and he now manages Osnabruck in the German third division, but he has found time ahead of this weekend to discuss the tactical merits of Ten Hag and Guardiola.
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The German praised Ten Hag for his tactical changes over the last few weeks, while he also predicted that he would be working on counter-attacks and transitions in training ahead of the Reds' visit to the Etihad, with Marcus Rashford set for a key role.
Rashford has contributed three goals and two assists this season and he has form for scoring against Man City.
"I think the coaches are both quite the same," Schweinsteiger told United's in-house media. "They're both really good at the tactical aspect, have really good impact on the team and are very good at details and analysing other teams and finding solutions.
"It'll be interesting who plays more football and I was very positive about United's match against Liverpool. They didn't play the goal-kicks short, they played long balls and went for the second balls.
"Against one of the best pressing teams, for me, this was a good coaching plan from Erik. If City press with two strikers or one striker and Kevin De Bruyne, and play a three-man build-up, but there will be a lot of tactics in the match.
"You need a very good mental strength in that match, you have to defend your goal every second and don't show mental weakness for one or two seconds because they can kill you. That would be a big key factor in the match.
"I can imagine United could play a bit more defensively and go for counter-attacks. They did really well with counter-attacks in the last matches so I think this could be a big chance, especially with Marcus Rashford.
"I think he played really good matches in the last weeks and, if you can counter with him, he could be a weapon in this game. I saw a lot of things from Erik that I remember, especially in the training sessions, but we didn't counter so much and do so well in the transitions after winning the ball.
"I think that can be a part where he can be working on with the team in the last weeks as that looked like they had trained more on this than we did in the past, on the transitions. I think the coaches respect each other.
"I know these coaches - they will focus on their teams and their team's strengths so it could be interesting on who is focused more on their team's strengths and who is focusing more on the opponents."
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