Interesting to see the biggest club in Germany, Bayern Munich, struggling in the 2010-11 season. After appearing to be on track to win the league title for a third successive season, a disastrous run of form in the middle of the season saw them lose seven of their next nine matches (including a humiliating 5-0 defeat at home to lowly F.C. Augsburg), and held to a goalless draw at struggling F.C. Nurnberg on the final day of the season.
A few weeks before the beginning of the new Bundesliga season, one of the league’s most famous clubs found themselves on the brink of disaster. Borussia Dortmund were looking like a near-certainty to return to the Champions League group stages after a season in which they finished first in the Bundesliga. But then, they were knocked out of the Champions League at the group stage draw, and dropped out of the top three in the Bundesliga.
German football has always been a conservative sport, where club owners were more interested in protecting their own interests than building a strong team. Now, it seems the Bundesliga is paying the price for that attitude: of the 18 clubs to play in the top division this year, eight of them are already out. That’s a record for the past 30 years, and it’s not likely to change this season either.. Read more about german soccer league and let us know what you think.5:30 A.M. EASTERN TIME.
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Dan Thomas is joined by Craig Burley, Shaka Hislop and others to bring you the latest developments and discuss key storylines. Broadcast on ESPN+ (US only).
The players all had quality, according to a source at ESPN, but the weight of the jersey pulled them down.
By the end of the calendar year, Schalke had won just one league game in the entire 2020 campaign, approaching Berlin Tasmania’s record of 31 games without a win. Baum was fired, and after Huub Stevens briefly returned for two games (he previously led Schalke in 1996-2002 and 2011-12, and on an interim basis in 2019), the club took a poison pill, a source told ESPN. With memories of his time at Stuttgart, Schneider is calling on former Tottenham Hotspur coach Christian Gross, who will quit as coach in 2020. He returned with old-fashioned tactics and an outdated leadership style.
Club legend Klaas-Jan Huntelaar has been recruited as an assistant on the pitch, along with Kolasinac who, like Shodran Mustafi, also came to Gelsenkirchen in January. But then Huntelaar got injured for a few weeks and Kolasinac and Mustafi showed why they failed in North London.
The descent continues even if Schalke are at 9. January defeated Hoffenheim 4-0 and failed to break Tasmania’s record. In late January they picked up seven points, and a month later, after a 5-1 defeat against Stuttgart, they fired the entire sporting staff, including Schneider and Gross. They have nine points in 23 games and have beaten four coaches: Wagner, Baum, Stevens and now Gross.
The fifth coach, Dimitrios Grammosis, was tasked with ending the season with as few losses as possible. He succeeded, but not more than that. He has collected just seven points in 11 games, but has given young players playing time, allowing Schalke to field a total of 41 players this season. When a loss against Arminia Bielefeld in mid-April secured the club’s relegation, frustration grew among fans.
After the final whistle, Borussia fans alongside Dortmund set off fireworks over Gelsenkirchen to celebrate Schalke’s setback. When the Schalke team returned, some fans were waiting for them at the stadium. They showed their displeasure with the team by chasing some players through the stadium. It was scary, a source told ESPN about that night. Schalke’s collapse is total, the glorious memories of title contention are a thing of the past.
After relegation was certain after the defeat against Arminia Bielefeld, there were clashes between Schalke fans and players after returning to the Weltins-Arena. Police at the Weltins Arena
Future uncertain
There has never been a place in German football like the Schalker Meile, an 800-metre long row of Schalke houses on Kurt-Schumacher-Strasse, with a church at one end and a café at the other. Before the pandemic, Kurt-Schumacher-Straße was painted blue and white, and fans from all over Germany came to drink beer and breathe in the club’s history at the Glückaufkampfbahn, the club’s pre-1973 site. There were reminders of past successes everywhere.
The stadium on the Schalker Meile offers perhaps one of the best stadium atmospheres in German football. From there, it’s just a short walk under the A42, through the Rhine-Gern and Emscher canals – an open drainage channel that is gradually being renatured – to the Weltins Arena, now Schalke’s stadium. On the left are the remains of the Park Stadium, which was home to the Royal Blues until 2001 and forms part of the club’s extensive training ground. The Veltins Arena would cement Schalke’s status as one of Germany’s giants. Now it’s more of a mausoleum in honor of their drastic decline.
That was a different story in December 2018, the last time Tonnies brought the group together. Before the match against Bayer Leverkusen, the stadium was plunged into darkness and the spotlights were turned on the miners on the pitch. In Bottrop and Ibbenbüren the last two coal mines in Germany were closed down, bringing an end to German industry. In the centre circle they stood next to Tonnies and other Schalke figures who would soon disappear. They sang an old miner’s song: Go on, go on. Scaffolding’s coming up. Und er hat sein stilles Licht bei der Nacht schon angezünd’t (Luck, good luck, the pitmaster is coming, and he has already turned on his bright nightlight). Minutes later, the players entered the field through a tunnel that had been turned into a mine shaft in 2014. But the mine no longer exists, and soon the old Schalke will not exist either.
What has happened, the relegation and everything, is like a confirmation for Schalke fans that they have been left behind, Taner Sahinturk, a former Schalke youth player turned actor and co-director of Schalke Visions, told ESPN.
Next season, Schalke want to return to the top division and fans will continue to follow the club’s values of working hard and supporting local businesses. Timo Riedemann, co-founder of the Schalke nur as eV fan group, said: The same goes for Schalke. We are united, we are a community.
It’s also a chance to regroup, Sahinturk says. Unlike me, Schalke will never die.
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