Get out: Schalke fires coach, sports director, fitness boss and team coordinator

The question „What’s going on at Schalke?“ has long become irrelevant. The German giants are in a free fall since the beginning of the season, and their relegation to the Bundesliga 2 is just a matter of time. But the manner in which they are going down is a separate story.

After appointing their fourth coach during just one season, the club officials reacted after a 5-1 thrashing against Stuttgart and on Sunday sacked coach Christian Gross, sports director Jochen Schneider and team manager Sascha Riether. According to information from "Sport1", athletics and fitness boss Werner Leuthard is also released and technical director Peter Knäbel will take over on a temporary basis with immediate effect.

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Gross was Schalke's fourth coach of a turbulent season. David Wagner was replaced by Manuel Baum at the end of September before club legend Huub Stevens stepped in for the club's final two competitive outings of 2020 following Baum's dismissal. So, what was wrong with coach number 4? Well, a lot of things, but one win in 11 matches would have to be the most important. Embarrassing slip of the tongue with player names like "Massimo Schüpp" (instead of Alessandro Schöpf) and "Can Erdogan" (instead of Can Bozdogan) have weakened the coach extremely. There were also allegations that Gross is tactically limited, that the training was too lax and wrong.

Before the Stuttgart match, it became known that the players Sead Kolasinac Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Shkodran Mustafi had sought a conversation with Schneider and Riether in order to overthrow their coach. Team coordinator Riether had denied that there had been an initiative by the players against Gross. "All morning we had other things to do than prepare for the game. There is talk of revolution and there was no revolution at all“ said Riether to Sky before the Stuttgart match.

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Now, the revolution came on Sunday morning and picked up Riether and the others. The morning training was canceled for obvious reasons and everybody is waiting to see who will take control of the first team. With the club in disarray, who would want to? Sead Kolašinac suggested that Mike Büskens (current assistant coach) and U19 trainer Norbert Elgert should take over, but the idea was denied on Friday. Come Sunday, the management is gone, maybe the captain’s idea will get approval by the board?