Dhe successor for Huub Stevens has been found. According to information from “Bild”, the decision has been made as to who will be Schalke’s new coach. It is Christian Gross who should save the bottom of the table before relegation from the Bundesliga for the fourth time.
Sports director Jochen Schneider proposed the Swiss successor to Manuel Baum (41 / dismissed last Friday) during a conference call with the supervisory board on Wednesday evening. The bosses basically agreed to put Schalke’s fate in the hands of Gross. Also a vote of confidence in Schneider (contract until 2022), which a no from the supervisory board would have almost disempowered. After David Wagner (49), Baum and Huub Stevens (67 / helped out for two games), Gross is the fourth Schalke coach in just four months.
Stevens, whose mission was completed on Tuesday evening with the 3-1 (1-0) over SSV Ulm in the DFB-Pokal, had already given an indication immediately after the game that something would happen to his post soon. “I had fun in these five days, but as of tonight I’m no longer a Schalke coach,” he said. End, end, off.
Then Stevens, who jumped in last Friday in dire need to somehow lead the bottom of the Bundesliga table through the last two competitive games of the year, left something behind. One of those self-deprecating jokes with which he had recently entertained journalists over and over again. According to the motto: What is safe at Schalke? What if until January 2nd, when the league continues at Hertha BSC, there is still no successor?
Gross is also only a year younger than Stevens
“I do hope that we will have found a new coach by Berlin. Otherwise I would have to renew my license again, ”said Stevens, making a face as if his wife Toos had already threatened him with divorce in this case. This is of course not the case, but if it does: Stevens would have bad cards in court – because of repeatedly broken promises on his part. Several times he had already declared his career over and then let himself be spread again.
But this time, the “Kerkrade growler” can actually say goodbye to retirement. Anything else would have made no sense either. “It’s hard for an old coach to pull players off the floor,” he said.
However, that should not be easy for the man who will follow either. Gross is 66 years old, just one year younger than Stevens. According to information from “Bild”, he will receive a contract until the end of the season. Without an extension clause, instead with a rescue bonus.
The man from Zurich attaches great importance to discipline. He was Swiss champion twice with Grasshopper Club Zurich and four times with FC Basel. He also knows his way around difficult situations: He saved both Tottenham Hotspur and VfB Stuttgart from relegation.
However, Gross has also been out of the European football business for a while. For the past six years he has worked in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In February he was released from Al-Ahli Djidda, and in May he declared his coaching career over. This is also a certain parallel to Stevens. But regardless of the fact that Gross, who is to lead the first team training session on December 28th, does not exactly represent a departure for new shores for many fans – the problems of the Royal Blues are complex.
2020 will go down in club history as a horror year: 29 Bundesliga games in a row could not be won. With David Wagner and Manuel Baum, two coaches fell victim to a team that had been problematic in their composition for a long time – that repeatedly dragged itself down. Schneider is convinced that Gross can discipline the difficult Schalke cabin and, through his authority, fulfill the anti-relegation mission.
There are some cornerstones where it became clear how strong the centrifugal forces are in the squad, which means that a really homogeneous team is not created. When the team resumed play on May 16 after the nine-week Bundesliga lockdown, they presented themselves in noticeably poor physical condition. Schneider went into the new season with Wagner anyway – although for economic reasons players previously loaned out had to return with Nabil Bentaleb, Hamza Mendyl, Sebastian Rudy and Mark Uth. It was Wagner who had sorted out the quartet beforehand.
Baum, Wagner’s successor, was more the victim than the culprit in the misery. His and Schneider’s desperate attempts to set an example by suspending unsuspecting professionals had no lasting effect.
The persistent atmospheric disturbance made things even more difficult: the fans first worked their way off the long-time supervisory board chairman Clemens Tönnies, after whose resignation at the end of June, Schneider and Marketing Director Alexander Jobst felt their anger. Hardly a week has recently passed without banners calling for the board to be replaced. The club ruled with an open letter and asked for a truce in order to join forces in view of the relegation battle. The Ultras reacted with renewed allegations, again in the form of a banner, hung up right next to the office: “To Alex and Jochen, your ‘painful’ mistakes can no longer be excused. Terminate your contracts – for the good of the association. “
Jobst and Schneider don’t think about that. And the supervisory board has – at least so far – not shown any tendencies to dismiss the board members. It is also unclear whether the new coach can hope for any reinforcements in January, when the transfer window opens. It is undisputed that these would be needed, but it is completely unclear what financing could look like. The only viable options would either be to sell other players such as defensive talent Ozan Kabak, in whom Liverpool FC should be interested – or to inject money from a benefactor.
Clemens Tönnies had offered in the summer to help with the financing of new players, probably on the basis of a personal loan. Schneider had refused this and made Tönnies’ offer public, which had caused irritation among the meat manufacturer. Nevertheless, it is not ruled out that Tönnies would continue to be willing to help – provided that Schalke would reconsider their position under the pressure of the otherwise threatened relegation. However, this should again lead to fan protests.
Huub Stevens would soon have to deal with these difficult questions again. After his work as a trainer, he is back on the supervisory board. He therefore assumes that his advice will be asked in the coming days. Neither he nor his successor Christian Gross should have a quiet Christmas.
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