Schalke 04 needs help again, Thomas Reis was the favorite – but the job doesn’t seem particularly grateful. No coach lasts long, that has become a tradition in Gelsenkirchen. In addition, club legend Olaf Thon is concerned and draws a drastic comparison.
You know that at Schalke by now, whoever wears royal blue has developed a certain routine: the coach is gone, they are looking for a new one, under whom everything really gets better. But while the environment on Thursday was still speculating about Thomas Reis as the successor to Frank Kramer, a Ur-Schalke already drew attention to deeper problems.
“My impression is,” said Olaf Thon dem table football: “The team is playing even worse at the moment than in the 2020/21 relegation season.” If anyone needs to know, it’s probably Thon, the eternal Gelsenkirchener, who witnessed the club’s last major successes as a professional around the turn of the millennium.
He sees “simply a quality problem” in the current team, and the promoted team will find it difficult “to gain a foothold in the Bundesliga”. And so Reis, who was released by neighbors VfL Bochum in September, was the favorite for a rather thankless job. According to information from sky but also not take over the vacant office.
Because Kramer leaves behind a huge legacy. Schalke has lost five games in a row in all competitions, the goal difference from this phase is 3:16. The cup debacle at TSG Hoffenheim (1: 5) last Tuesday was just the final point. First of all, assistant coach Matthias Kreutzer is now leading the training, together with Mike Büskens he could also look after the team on Sunday (5:30 p.m. live on DAZN) at Hertha BSC.
In the meantime, ex-Bundesliga coach Bruno Labbadia has already been traded, but he has already canceled those responsible at Schalke.
Schalke 04: Team “intact” according to Thon
It was already clear in the summer that it would be difficult. Sports director Rouven Schröder had to put together a first division squad in great financial need, after almost a third of the season this endeavor seems to have failed. Although the team is “intact”, says Thon, one should “be able to expect more chances to score” even from a promoted team. Above all, there is a lack of speed, and that would also have been a problem for Reis: At VfL Bochum he had played effective football for a long time thanks to fast wingers, among other things.
There are still five games before the long World Cup winter break, then Schalke should actually improve their squad. The economic situation hasn’t gotten any easier, however, because Kramer isn’t the only ex-coach Schalke still has to pay. His predecessor Dimitrios Grammozis, who was fired a good seven months ago, is still receiving his salary.
However, looking at Grammozis also shows that there must be an ongoing problem. He worked in Gelsenkirchen for a year and was one of the particularly tough coaches in the turbulent environment of the big club. In the past three years there have been seven bosses on the line, five in the relegation season alone. The metaphor of the ejection seat probably never fits so well.
Schelke 04: Baum sees the squad as “realistic”
Manuel Baum is also a player who failed at FC Schalke. In 2020 he was allowed to play eleven games, then he lost his job again. A few months and three coaches later, the team was relegated. And looking at the current season, Baum doesn’t really see any better chances.
“You have to be realistic,” he said SID at a congress in Cologne. The squad was not put together in such a way that staying up “happened automatically”.
