Fear of falling into the 3rd league
FC Schalke ruined Stevens’ 70th birthday
November 28, 2023, 8:35 a.m
Huub Stevens celebrated two DFB Cup triumphs as coach of FC Schalke, the highlight being winning the UEFA Cup. The Royal Blues are a long way from these glorious times and are threatened with relegation for the second time in a row. This spoils the joy of the coach of the century on his 70th birthday.
Shortly before his 70th birthday this Wednesday, everything could be fine for Huub Stevens. If it weren’t for FC Schalke. What Stevens sees week after week in his home country of the Netherlands or in the stadium of the club he loves hits him hard. “You can’t be happy there,” says Schalke’s coach of the century. “Anyone with a blue and white heart is worried about this.”
His is particularly large. And it’s bleeding a lot right now. Watching Schalke 04 fight against relegation from the second Bundesliga is tough for Stevens, who experienced completely different royal blue times. At the side of charismatic club officials such as the former manager Rudi Assauer, who has already died, or Schalke boss Clemens Tönnies, who was replaced after racist attacks and a Corona outbreak at his main factory, Stevens won titles and played internationally. In 1997 he led the Revierklub to the UEFA Cup triumph and in 2001 and 2002 he led the DFB Cup.
“We had a lot of fun,” says Stevens looking back – apart from the pain of narrowly missing out on the title in 2001, when he and Assauer cried snot and water at the “Championship of Hearts”. “What was, was,” says Stevens now. He has been Schalke’s coach a total of four times since 1996 and couldn’t say no in 2020 when he was asked to help out again for a Bundesliga game. Even back then, the Revierklub was doing very badly as it staggered towards the second division.
But what the former Dutch international sees three years and two Bundesliga relegations later makes him even sadder. He last sat in the stadium in Gelsenkirchen at the end of October for the 3-2 win against Hannover and saw an even better performance than the devastating 3-5 loss in Düsseldorf on Saturday. “But the way you play football – no,” says Stevens. This is not his Schalke, not the quality in the squad that he still knew. “The way I see it, it will be very difficult,” says Stevens about Schalke’s chances in the fight against relegation.
Things are going much better at PSV Eindhoven
However, Schalke’s condition cannot affect his personal well-being. “I feel good, I feel good,” Stevens says, laughing. That was not always so. In the past, pericarditis caused him to finally end his coaching career. He felt this was a “yellow card” for him. He learned the lessons from it, recovered and is now enjoying the time he has left: “I hope that I have a few more years on earth. That I can enjoy it and spend time with the children and grandchildren.”
The whole family gets together again on Wednesday. It is celebrated “in small groups”. And probably also talked shop. Because football still plays a big role in his life, even if only as an observer. According to his own statement, he regularly follows each of his former clubs. And those were a few: Roda Kerkrade, PSV Eindhoven, Red Bull Salzburg, PAOK Saloniki, Schalke, Hertha BSC, 1. FC Köln, Hamburger SV, VfB Stuttgart and TSG Hoffenheim. But he actually only really lost his heart to two clubs: Schalke in Germany and PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
“That’s obvious when you’ve been at a club for so long.” The former Dutch international was already active as a professional in Eindhoven for eleven years. He is still a regular at the PSV stadium. And as the confident leader of the Eredivisie, Eindhoven is giving him a lot of joy.
Huub Stevens is noticeably at peace with himself and the world. You can feel this in every strong and hearty laugh with which he accompanies many of his statements. A return as a coach that many colleagues still flirt with, even at his age? Excluded. “That’s clear. At my age, you don’t really need to be in front of a group anymore. The young boys should do it now,” confirms Stevens. And laughs piercingly.