There are transfers that are measured by the number of goals, minutes and kilometers in high pressure. And there are others, much rarer, who are measured by how quickly they bring color back to the fans’ faces and that long-forgotten belief that their club still means something. Schalke 04 is in that other story these days. Not because the team is first in the rankings, nor because everything suddenly became calm and orderly, but because one name appeared in the air that ignites the imagination: Edin Džeko.
The author of the comparison that perfectly explains this feeling takes us back to the summer of 2018, when Marcelo Bielsa, a coach who until then was mentioned as a role model by Pep Guardiola, Diego Simeone and Mauricio Pochettino, accepted a job at Leeds United, then a second division club with a reputation for a club that often lives in chaos. Logic said it didn’t make sense. It didn’t matter to the fans. What was important was that the move restored faith in one’s own strength and in the idea that “it can be done again”, that one can return to where Leeds thinks it belongs.
A similar thing is now happening in Gelsenkirchen. Marcelo Bielsa is not on his way to Schalke, although once upon a time, in the fall of 2022, he was reportedly close to taking over the team. And it is not even crucial that Schalke is at the top of the second league. The euphoria that spread around the club has a more concrete face, much more familiar to the general public: Džekino.
It all started after a dismal performance at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, when Sky journalist Dirk große Schlarmann announced that Schalke were in talks with the Bosnia-Herzegovina striker about a possible arrival. In the same sentence, a threat appeared in the form of a rich rival, a Parisian club that can offer far more money. But a few days later, the story gained serious momentum: several media outlets reported that Džeko had already reached an agreement with Schalke, and that now an agreement remains with his current club, Fiorentina.
If you look at the bare statistics of this season, someone would wave their hand. Džeko played in eleven out of 21 possible matches in the Italian championship and did not score a goal. But this story does not live from the table. She lives on memories. Dzeko is a striker who won titles in Germany, England and Italy, a man who is counted among the most deadly scorers in Europe’s strongest leagues in this century, in the company of names that are usually pronounced with special respect. Even before leaving for Florence, he had the effect of scoring almost a goal every other game in Turkish Fenerbahce, which is very impressive for a player in his late playing years.
The most interesting part of the story, however, concerns the issue of body and spirit. Dzeko is 39 years old, but according to Fiorentina teammate Robin Gosens, his everyday life is far from the image of a “veteran who keeps his strength”. In his podcast in November, Gosens described Džeka as a man who is the first to arrive and the last to leave, who literally “works in the gym” as if he were twenty-something. This immediately opens a new debate: can such a striker withstand football full of pressure and racing, as coach Miron Muslić is looking for? Can he even revive the performance he had before Florence in the second league, where the game is played rough, fast and often without mercy?
Those sporting issues are important, but in Schalke’s case they are not central. Central is what this transfer would mean symbolically. Schalke is a club that for too long felt like the world had forgotten it. The arrival of a player with such a name would be an injection of self-esteem, a small proof that the club still has weight and appeal. One return of the feeling: “We are someone else.”
The euphoria is further fueled by the story that Dzeko is allegedly turning down more money from Paris in order to accept a contract that would be strongly linked to performance and goal at Schalke – entry into the Bundesliga. In such an image, the fan sees a romance: a great player who does not come for the last salary, but for the last great challenge. And that’s where another man from the story appears: Sead Kolašinac. Allegedly, it was the conversation with the former Schalke player that made the decision, with a sentence that hits the fans straight to the heart: if you want to experience something really special once again in your career, then try to get into the Bundesliga with Schalke.
For fans who have left behind the worst season in the history of the club, such sentences act like a freshly poured beer on a hot night: fast, strong and without the need for additional explanations.
That’s why the journalist of 11 Freunde magazine, Florian Nussdorfer, recalls a famous moment from Marseille, when the fans welcomed Marcelo Bielsa with a banner in Spanish: “Loco, haznos soñar” – “Madman, let us dream.”
Today, Schalke dreams in a different language, with a different man, but with the same longing. If it really happens that Dzeko runs out in blue, it is very possible that a message will dawn on the Veltins Arena that summarizes everything: “Old man, let’s dream!”
And maybe that’s the whole point. Sometimes football doesn’t ask for a perfect plan, but a good reason to believe again. Schalke found such a reason in the name of Edin Dzeke.
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