Appearing as the opening act of a grand event is not an easy matter for everyone. Not everyone can handle psychological stress. This condition may be experienced by Schalke in the opening match of the 2020/21 Bundesliga season against Bayern Munich, where they appeared chaotic and lost eight goals without reply. The match that many have been waiting for has even become a nightmare for David Wagner’s foster children.
Playing at the Allianz Arena without spectators, Amine Harit et al actually appeared quite promising in the first three minutes. But after that, Bayern with their high press appeared trengginas. Serge Gnabry scored three of the eight goals against Ralf Fahrmann, while the remaining five were scored by Lewandowski, Goretzka, Mueller, Sane, and Jamal Musiala. The closing goal scored by Musiala, a 17 year old player, seems to be a punchline that triggers us to laugh at Schalke’s comical action for 90 minutes.
This defeat is certainly an embarrassment for Schalke and his fans. In terms of play, David Wagner does not seem to show significant changes for his team. Amine Harit et al still haven’t won in the Bundesliga since the turn of the year 2020. The team that finished in 14th place last season was only able to win 6 draws and 11 defeats.
However, the fault was not entirely with David Wagner. This 8-0 defeat was just the tip of the iceberg for the club from Gelsenkirchen. There is a much bigger problem they are facing, namely the financial crisis.
Yes, now Schalke is in a financial crisis. As DW reports, they have debts of around 200 million euros. In this regard, Jochen Schneider as the sport director at Schalke emphasized that his team will not spend a lot of money indefinitely.
This is what makes replacing David Wagner with a new coach not an easy matter. Sacking Wagner is tantamount to providing severance pay for the coach who is still under contract until 2022, and then pouring money again to pay for a new coach who may also need adaptation.
The financial crisis was exacerbated after the Covid-19 pandemic. The league which had stopped and spectators who were not allowed to attend the stadium made Schalke worse. Because Schalke is one of five Bundesliga clubs that only rely on club operations — such as ticket sales, broadcast rights, bonuses from European competitions and player sales — as a source of income.
In addition, this condition also makes Die Knappen unable to buy players without selling first. This can be seen from the stretching of Schalke’s transfer this season. According to the Transfermarkt website, until now they have only been able to generate 4.5 million euros from Weston McKennie’s loan fees to Juventus. Alexander Nubel and Daniel Caligiuri were released free of charge.
McKennie’s loan itself seemed a little absurd. When the club is in need of investment, they even release their players on loan. Even though at the same time, several other clubs were reportedly interested in buying it. Even so, according to Goal.com, McKennie’s loan has a clause that requires Juventus to redeem the United States midfielder.
Juve will have to pay Schalke for 18.5 million euros if he has played 60% of Juve’s matches this season. If you count the 44 league and group stages of the Champions League, that means he has to play at least 26 times. I don’t know if he will be able to reach that number, considering Juve still have 5 other players in the central midfield position.
Meanwhile, from McKennie’s money, Schalke has used 2.5 million euros to borrow Goncalo Paciencia from Eintracht Frankfurt. Previously they also brought in a veteran striker, Vedad Ibisevic for free. The transfer of the 36-year-old striker is even more economical because he is willing to accept no salary and is only paid a bonus per game.
If we take it back a few years, Schalke’s crisis is inseparable from the bad decisions the club has taken in the last decade. Since the 2011/12 season, Schalke has changed coaches eight times and neither has lasted the full two seasons.
We can also see the dilapidation of Schalke’s management from the number of star players who have been released for free since the 2016/17 season. During that time, Schalke had lost Joel Matip, Sead Kolasinac, Choupo Moting, Max Meyer, Leon Goretzka and most recently Alex Nubel. Imagine if Schalke could at least get money from these players.
The adage that says “what you sow, you reap” is very fitting to describe the current condition of Schalke, and should be able to be used as a lesson for anyone, especially for themselves. But either way, the 2020/21 season has just started and there is still time for the Royal Blues squad to wake up from this long nightmare.
ASL
