Thanks to a furious final spurt, FC Schalke 04 managed to return directly to the Bundesliga last summer. Mainly responsible: interim coach Mike Büskens. So far, he has continued to sit on the bench, but now he has to leave it.
At FC Schalke 04, head coach Thomas Reis has reorganized the distribution of tasks in the coaching team at the start of preparations for the next season in the Bundesliga. According to the club, Mike Büskens, who led the Revierklub back to the Bundesliga as a coach in the previous season and was still part of the coaching staff this season, will no longer accompany the licensed team from the sidelines in the future. According to this, Büskens should now act as a "liaison coach" and be increasingly used to look after young players.
Assistant coach Markus Gellhaus and goalkeeping coach Simon Henzler will continue to work closely with Reis, as will assistant Matthias Kreutzer, who will be increasingly responsible for game analysis in the future. "In the past few weeks I've analyzed the impressions I was able to gather before the break and thought about how we as a coaching team can get the most out of our squad," explained Reis. After the previous 15 matchdays, Schalke is in last place in the Bundesliga table with nine points and five points behind relegation place 16.
In the first team training session after the World Cup break, Reis got his players in the mood for catching up in the relegation battle. The coach initially has to do without defender Maya Yoshida, who is part of the Japanese national team's squad for the World Cup in Qatar. Before Christmas, Schalke has planned three friendlies away against Rapid Vienna (December 9), Hajduk Split (December 16) and third division club VfL Osnabrück (December 22).
