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Patience and persistence were required for Fire to sign Bastian Schweinsteiger

Fire coach Veljko Paunovic was spotted meeting with Schweinsteiger in Manchester in November. MLSsoccer.com's Sam Stejskal chronicled the timeline and how the Fire convinced the German star to come to Chicago. General manager Nelson Rodriguez said in a conference call on Tuesday that the first pursuit of him "came late summer, early fall of last year." Things did not progress initially.