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Empty coach chairs at Schalke
Photo: Dean Mouhtaropoulos / Getty Images
The server collapsed briefly under the load of the many accesses, but FC Schalke 04 quickly got this problem under control.
The message that coach David Wagner was released the morning after the 3-1 defeat against Werder Bremen was read again.
It did not surprise anyone, even the farewell words of sports director Jochen Schneider could be predicted: "We all had hoped that we would be able to achieve the sporting turnaround together with David Wagner. Unfortunately, the first two game days of the new season did not produce the necessary performance and results. "
A whole preparation and an almost complete transfer period, this hope rested on a coach who had come under heavy criticism after 16 games without a win in the previous second half of the Bundesliga.
Wagner's contract is valid until June 30, 2022.
So he will continue to receive his salary or severance pay.
The best solution for Schalke would be if another club were found to sign Wagner.
The club is staggering
The solution for a successor seems to have already been found.
At least this is how the last sentence of the release report reads: "FC Schalke 04 will inform about the successor in the coming days."
That sounds a lot more like an imminent enforcement notification than an ongoing search.
Who will be Schalke's new head coach could be even more important this time than is the case with coaching questions anyway.
The club is battered, it is staggering.
Financially, there is hardly any scope for commitments that improve the squad.
You need a coach who is able to bring out the existing quality.
Who develops talent, increases market values, makes sure that it is fun to watch Schalke play football again.
And the question arises as to whether the club can afford to make another mistake in choosing a coach, strategically and financially.
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Coach winning the last Schalke title to date: Rangnick in 2011
Photo:
Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa
The new one has to fit.
And the greatest of the possible solutions would be: Ralf Rangnick.
Rangnick, 62, has been without a job since he left RB, and his involvement with AC Milan has, as is well known, failed.
He knows sports director Schneider, they worked together in Leipzig from 2015 to 2019.
And he knows Schalke, Rangnick trained the miners from 2004 to 2005 and 2011, together they celebrated their last title win so far
,
the DFB Cup victory nine years ago.
To get Rangnick would be to dedicate yourself to him and his philosophy.
His ideas about football are irrefutable, they are based on pressing, on switching, on young players instead of experienced ones.
On the one hand, the Schalke squad has talents with which Rangnick should get along well.
There are also several over 30 players in it, Rangnick should want to rebuild the team according to his ideas.
Which would probably cost a lot of money.
In return, the club would get someone who had always been successful recently.
And a face with radiance that would stand for S04.
"A change of coach is not enough at Schalke"
As a guest on the show "sky90", when asked about a possible third engagement as a coach for the Gelsenkirchen team, Rangnick said: "If I were to say now that I am not interested in Schalke, I would be lying."
However, it was "currently difficult" for him to introduce himself as Wagner's successor.
In any case, the line to Schneider seems to be tight.
Rangnick said that he called the sports director on Saturday morning to "wish him luck in the game".
But he thinks that "a change of coach will not be enough for Schalke in perspective. I believe that Schalke will have to see how they position themselves for the future in order to be among the top eight in Germany in two or three years. "
Schneider would suddenly disappear from the limelight if Rangnick were signed, into which he fell against his will because he was considered the only advocate of Wagner.
The fact that Rangnick likes to claim as much power as possible should not be a problem for the current board of directors, unlike other former Schalke decision-makers such as Rudi Assauer and Clemens Tönnies.
Black?
Tree?
Wilmots?
Sandro Schwarz, who is also traded, would be the alternative to Rangnick.
The former Mainz coach should be considerably cheaper, which is mainly due to the fact that he has hardly any successes to show.
Schwarz, 41, was a youth coach at Mainz before he took over the second team and then the professionals.
He was long considered a modern coach who not only developed ideas for playing against the ball, but also for his own attacking game.
Alone: In the Bundesliga, his team was only able to access that in rudiments.
In his first Bundesliga season he was 14th, then twelfth, in his third season he had to leave after eleven match days.
Marc Wilmots in 1997: Soon back at FC Schalke?
Photo: Bongarts / Getty Images
The rumor also emerges of Manuel Baum's name, for whom the same applies as for Schwarz.
Baum, 41, like Schwarz, was head coach of a Bundesliga club for less than three years who wanted to avoid relegation above all: FC Augsburg.
He has been a U20 coach at the DFB since July 2019.
Marc Wilmots, who won the Uefa Cup with Schalke as "Eurofighter" in 1997, is also considered a candidate.
Wilmots would be a nostalgic solution that would also have doubts.
"I have also received a lot of messages from Schalke in the last few days, which made me very happy. I will not say more about your question, out of respect for my colleague and former teammate David Wagner. That is inappropriate," Wilmots said Weser Courier ".
As rational and pragmatic as Jochen Schneider has been working at Schalke since March 2019, the probability is very low that it will be the news of the Belgian’s commitment that will bring the club's server to its knees the next time.
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