Marked for Robert Schmidt
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets11 Feb 2036
Everything was agreed with RB Leipzig and then the doctor spoke. Schalke 04 have walked away from a signing on the advice of somebody who never saw him play, which is how it is supposed to work.
Market11 Feb 2036
Lasse Nordås has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Schalke 04 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market11 Feb 2036
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Schalke 04 heard it as anything else.
Squad11 Feb 2036
A row about effort at Schalke 04
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Malik Tillman was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match9 Feb 2036
RB Leipzig made Schalke 04 work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Market11 Feb 2036
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Schalke 04 can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Player ratings11 Feb 2036
Assan Ouédraogo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.23. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad11 Feb 2036
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Robert Schmidt and Schalke 04 agree another 4 years.
The dugout11 Feb 2036
Malik Tillman gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Malik Tillman is on it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market28 Jan 2036
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market28 Jan 2036
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
The dugout28 Jan 2036
Robert Schmidt: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Schalke 04 have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market28 Jan 2036
Jesper Baas has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Schalke 04 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Transfer targets28 Jan 2036
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Köln have kept their man, and Schalke 04 go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad28 Jan 2036
A row about effort at Schalke 04
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Adam Hložek was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match26 Jan 2036
0‑2 to Borussia Mönchengladbach, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout28 Jan 2036
When it matters, Manu Koné plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout28 Jan 2036
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match29 Dec 2035
Schalke 04 make home a hard place to visit
21 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad31 Dec 2035
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Schalke 04 will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match26 Dec 2035
A 3‑0 win over Dynamo Dresden, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings31 Dec 2035
A brace, and Lasse Nordås takes the afternoon — 8.70
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lasse Nordås provided it, and the 8.70 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings31 Dec 2035
What a way to start for Stefan Brandt — 7.72
0 on the scoresheet on his first appearance and a mark of 7.72 beside it. Most debuts are got through; this one was enjoyed, by him and by everybody watching it.
Player ratings31 Dec 2035
Robert Schmidt, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.89
A mark of 7.89 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market31 Dec 2035
Jesper Baas has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Schalke 04 they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad31 Dec 2035
Malik Tillman falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings31 Dec 2035
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.