Wednesday April 21, 2021
Asamoah mourns the descent
The bitterest moment of a disastrous season
Hardly any relegated team has fought so little and so hopelessly against relegation as a former Champions League semi-finalist: FC Schalke is making a disastrous season perfect. Above all, this moves a club legend deeply.
No, the relegation of FC Schalke does not come as a surprise. Since the first game day, since the dramatically disastrous 8-0 at Bayern, the club has been on a relegation zone. Uninterrupted bottom line, it will stay that way. FC Schalke 04 will be in a second division in the coming season. A realization that they were able to get used to in Gelsenkirchen for months. And yet she came after the 0-1 at Arminia Bielefeld like a mallet over the club. “It hurts even more than expected. Shit!”, Tweeted the social media department of the club, which had not even tried to persevere slogans for a long time, when the fourth descent in the club’s history was certain.
How painful the departure from the Bundesliga was despite the long, long run-up was nowhere as touchingly impressive as on the face of Schalke’s club legend Gerald Asamoah. He has been responsible as a team coordinator for several months, but is above all emotionally connected to the club. The former professional stepped in front of the “Sky” microphone with tears in his eyes and announced that they had known “what to expect. But when you realize that it’s over, it’s already brutal.” In his 20 years at the club, he never dreamed that things could come to this.
Again and again, the former crowd favorite had to struggle for composure when he was supposed to assess the current situation. No, he did not “want to use a word that could hurt anyone”, but he did not say a good word about the kicking staff, who were responsible for the disaster from Schalke’s point of view. “If you are bottom of the table, with 13 points, if someone says he gave everything … I don’t know what I would do with that person. Wearing the colors of Schalke 04 means a lot, said Asamoah.
“I can imagine how many Schalke fans sit in front of the TV at home and cry. We have all disappointed,” added Asamoah, the current coordinator of the licensed players’ department. “Wearing the Schalke emblem means a lot and the question arises whether everyone has understood that. Everyone should ask themselves whether they have done everything to keep the club alive.” The words and tears of the Schalke legend are likely to have been an emotional blow for the fans of the club in a season so rich in depressing moments.
“Bitter hour for all Schalke players”
Coach Dimitrios Grammozis found similar words after the once again disappointing performance, which now also arithmetically documents the second class: The goal is to have “a powerful team” in the next season, “of which the fans can be proud again”. Work on this task must now be intensified. “We just have to see that we can win guys back for this club who are worthy of the emblem. That they know what Schalke is. What they are getting into here.” It is a “bitter hour for all Schalke players” – especially for fans and employees of the club. “That is why we are brutally disappointed that the certainty is now there,” said Grammozis. The 42-year-old is the fifth coach to coach Schalke this season.
Before going to the second division, Grammozis wants to “say goodbye” to FC Schalke from the Bundesliga. He assured: “We will not give up any game. We will prepare as well as possible for the games and once again give everything to represent the club worthily in these final games.”
Sports director Peter Knäbel assured that “we mourn primarily with our fans. We mourn with our members. We mourn with everyone who remains loyal to Schalke 04 in good times as well as now in bad. At this moment it is all about the fans and members of Schalke 04. ” But in addition to the “anger and disappointment that is not only in us” there is also hope for a speedy recovery, because the 2nd division scenario has already been worked on for months. You are prepared and in the embrace with the devastated Asamoah you promised yourself: “We will get out of there again!”
For Schalke, it is the fourth Bundesliga relegation in club history. After the last Bundesliga return in 1991, the Revierclub gradually established itself among the national and expanded European leaders. Another descent was long considered unrealistic – until Schalke only barely saved themselves in 2019 after a messed up season. Everything seemed fine again under the new coach David Wagner. After a strong run in the 2019/2020 season, the former Champions League permanent guest thought he was on his way back to the premier class in January 2020, but an unprecedented crash followed, which now led to relegation.
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