Wednesday, May 19, 2021
“Master of Hearts” in May 2001
The unimaginably bitter celebration of FC Schalke
20 years ago today at FC Schalke they briefly thought they would finally be champions of the Bundesliga for the first time. Then comes the sobering news from Hamburg. Joy turns into mourning at the club, which often fails narrowly like no other.
Four minutes, 38 seconds. The shortest championship celebration in Bundesliga history, but also the most emotional. Rockets shoot into the sky, thousands of fans flock to the field, Rudi Assauer raises his fist, the players roll around on the lawn – 43 years of waiting are over, Schalke 04 are finally champions again. Huub Stevens, who repeatedly warned to calm down after the final whistle after the 5: 3 against SpVgg Unterhaching, is on his way to the dressing room. “I had a strange feeling, I had to be quiet,” remembers the Schalke coach of the century.
When he stepped into his coaching room on May 19, 2001, the television was on: “Merk just whistled the free kick.” And the disaster takes its course. Because Bayern Munich’s game at Hamburger SV is not over yet, as everyone assumed. After the most controversial back pass in football history, referee Markus Merk decided on an indirect free kick for the record champions.
Oliver Kahn, who pushed his teammates with the words “on, on and on” after Sergej Barbarez conceded a late goal, jostled his way through the Hamburg penalty area. Stefan Effenberg taps the ball, Patrik Andersson thrashes it into the goal. What Stevens sees on the screen in his dressing room with some players is shown on the scoreboard outside in the Park Stadium.
Paralyzing horror seizes the 65,000, Assauer waves his hand silently, pushes through the crowds to the escalator, the tears of joy are now tears of sadness. Stevens tries to round up his players. “It wasn’t easy, one walked here, the other there.”
Schalke, Club of Failure?
When everyone is finally together, he says: “We can cry now, but we can also be proud. We qualified for the Champions League.” Little consolation, he knows himself, after a season in which Schalke thrilled with spectacular offensive football and was closer to the eighth championship title than ever since.
20 minutes later, Stevens and the team appear over the marathon goal to the fans, who say: “You’ll never walk alone”. Now the “Knurrer von Kerkrade” has also lost the fight: “I popped away a tear,” he says in a mix of German and Dutch. Manager Assauer later said at the press conference: “I no longer believe in the god of football.”
A week later, Schalke won the DFB Cup, but only the most dramatic final in Bundesliga history will be remembered for the “Master of Hearts”. “Somehow,” says Stevens 20 years behind, “it suits Schalke” and he has to laugh, “yes, you can say that.”
Like no other club, Schalke defines itself through dramatic failure, through broken dreams, through painful crashes – not through the stringing together of successes. In 1972, when the best team in the history of the Royal Blue Bundesliga fought for the title with Bayern, the Bundesliga scandal tore the young, highly talented team apart. In the 1980s, the cult club rose three times with a lot of spectacle – with a three-day president, a “sun king”, but now and then also “without money for washing powder”.
And the fourth descent must – of course – be one with historical dimensions. Close to Tasmania Berlin. “We all suffer,” says Stevens, “it sucks that we were relegated to the second division – but we have to get up again like we did back then.”
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