Robin Gosens was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Edin Džeko 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.
Successful dribbles: 15. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Helmut Schumacher was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Schalke 04 dressing room was either.
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Robin Gosens was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 19 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad12 Oct 2026
13 new faces, and Schalke 04 are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dejan Ljubičić trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Markus Schubert’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Schalke 04 needing him to play as if none of it matters.
$5.9M is a serious amount of money and it does not play centre-forward. Everybody in the dressing room knows who used to be looked at when it went wrong.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Schalke 04 will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
$12.3M on the table at FC Cincinnati. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Schalke 04 offered $14.5M; OB said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
He is going to VfL Bochum, the club has $5.9M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
The offer from Fortuna Düsseldorf for Bryan Lasme was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Robin Gosens was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Schalke 04 have gone to Holstein Kiel with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The phone has started ringing about Ilyes Hamache again, and this time the name on the line is Grodig. Schalke 04 are listening politely and promising nothing.
In brief
SquadA muscle injury sidelines Tim Dietrich for 16 days
The offer went to TSG Hoffenheim this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
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.
Schalke 04 have gone to OB with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Schalke 04 people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $21.0M — a club that wants Wouter Burger enough to be asked twice.
The shirt still fits. Markus Schubert is back at Schalke 04, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Dejan Ljubičić and Schalke 04 agree another 4 years.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
Schalke 04 spend $1.5M on the signing the town wanted
It is the rarest sequence in football: supporters ask for something, and the club goes and does it. $1.5M for Lukas Reich, and for one week nobody is complaining about anything.