Bundesliga: Schalke 'tearing themselves apart'

Schalke's crisis worsens with the departure of technical director Michael Reschke and the exiling of players Amine Harit, Nabil Bentaleb and Vedad Ibisevic. It's the latest low for a club now without a win in 25 games.

The Bundesliga's ailing bottom club, Schalke 04, remain in freefall after a heavy 4-1 defeat by Borussia Mönchengladbach on Saturday evening — their 25th winless game.

"We're tearing ourselves apart," club chairman Jochen Schneider told Sportbild earlierthis week, a day before the Royal Blues announced a series of high profile departures on and off the pitch.

Firstly, technical director Michael Reschke, an experienced Bundesliga operator formerly of Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich and VfB Stuttgart, was relieved of his duties after 18 months and three transfer windows in charge of squad planning.

"We had differing opinions regarding the sporting future of the club," said Schneider, whose relationship with Reschke had previously been reported to have been no more than "professional."

Harit, Bentaleb and Ibisevic sidelined, Uth distraught

Soon after followed the news that midfielders Amine Harit and Nabil Bentaleb will train individually until further notice, with the latter to leave the club in summer 2021 at the latest. "Schalke and Nabil obviously don't fit together," said Schneider in a statement.

Meanwhile, Schalke's players were said to be shocked when Harit was named in the starting XI ahead of the 0-2 defeat to Wolfsburg last week, given his under-par performances and attitude this season, and the Moroccan was subsequently substituted after just 38 minutes, heading straight down the tunnel and ignorning coach Manuel Baum.

"There were some things that happened last weekend which we were not okay with," explained Schneider. "That’s why Amine has been given time to think."

Finally, striker Vedad Ibisevic, who only signed a matter of months ago on a contract worth less than €10,000, will have his contract terminated on December 31 and is already back in Berlin with his family. The Bosnian veteran was involved in a training ground bust-up with assistant coach Naldo, but Schneider insists that the dispute isn't the reason for the dismissal. "Sometimes in life, it just doesn't work," he said, "but we remain friends."

The departures leave Schalke with a squad of players who, in Schneider's words, "obviously" haven't grasped the magnitude of the situation, or don't want to, but aren't good enough to attract suitors to take them away from the club - all supplemented by youngsters promoted from the youth academy too soon.

"It's so upsetting to turn up here every time and play such helpless football," visibly distraught striker Mark Uth told Skytelevision after the Wolfsburg defeat. "We're always a step behind, we're late into tackles and we didn't even get a single yellow card.

"I don't know how we're supposed to win a game like this. I've had enough and I'm just so angry. I feel like just going into the dressing room and crying."

Coaches, players, sporting directors, club officials - there is no single solution to the myriad of problems at Schalke, Bundesliga runners-up under Domenico Tedesco in 2018 and Champions League semifinalists under Ralf Rangnick as recently as 2011, but now facing a battle to stay in the top flight.

But before the problems surrounding the first team can be solved, there are significant structural and economic issues at Schalke which look likely to spark civil war at the club.

Controversial money-saving measures and 'moral bankruptcy'

When it was reported that football's coronavirus-enforced hiatus could send 13 Bundesliga and second-division clubs into insolvency earlier this year, Schalke were widely presumed to be most at risk. The club ended the 2018-19 financial year with debts of almost €200 million ($224 million), a figure which is predicted to increase to €250 million by the end of the calendar year.

Money- saving measures taken by the club confirmed the suspicions, while the club's relationship with the fans became increasingly strained. A subsequently-retracted request for

Michael Reschke, who is believed to have fallen out with sporting director Jochen Schneider, had been at Schalke since July 2019