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🌙 Bundesliga coach or Sandman: Has he fooled us all?
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- 🌙 Bundesliga coach or Sandman: Has he fooled us all?
🌙 Bundesliga coach or Sandman: Has he fooled us all?
It wasn't all that long ago that Miro Muslic was something of the nation's favourite coach. But just a few weeks of Bundesliga football have been enough to silence the seemingly boundless euphoria at Schalke.
There were certainly very good reasons for optimism among the Royal Blues. After three—to put it mildly—complicated years in Bundesliga 2, Schalke secured promotion to the top flight in impressive and commanding fashion this summer. They also kept almost all their key players and made sensible additions to the squad. Their intense style of play, built on defensive solidity, seemed tailor-made for a Bundesliga relegation battle. Lothar Matthäus was far from the only person predicting a 12th-place finish for Schalke before the season began. By contrast, relatively few observers had the newly promoted side down as firm relegation candidates.
📸 Lars Baron - 2026 Getty Images
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And then, of course, there was Muslic himself. The Austrian was a largely unknown quantity when he took over Schalke in the summer of 2025, but he silenced his many sceptics in record time. With his rousing rhetoric and likeable manner, he became the face of the revival in Gelsenkirchen. When his contract extension was announced in the stadium in May 2026, immediately after promotion, the celebrations understandably knew no bounds. Muslic mania had reached its absolute peak!
An outburst brings the crisis to a head
The start of this Bundesliga season seemed to justify all the early praise. A hard-fought 0-0 draw against mighty Bayern Munich was followed by a thoroughly deserved 3-1 away win at Union Berlin. The many optimists felt vindicated: this Schalke side would have relatively little to do with the relegation battle!
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Yet just seven weeks later, things look nowhere near as rosy for Schalke. The win in Berlin remains their only three-point haul to date. With just four goals, S04 have the worst attack in the league, failing to score in five of their seven matches. At their home ground, the Veltins-Arena, Schalke are still waiting for their first win. Their dreadful injury luck, including the absences of Robin Gosens, Moussa Sylla and Soufiane El-Faouzi, must of course be taken into account. Even so, it is absolutely alarming how little Muslic's players offer in possession.
The crisis reached a new low with a thoroughly deserved 2-0 defeat at second-division strugglers Dynamo Dresden in the DFB-Pokal. For the first time, the mood among Schalke's fans also turned afterwards. Among the most-liked comments on X were remarks such as "No wonder when we're playing this crap" and accusations that there had been "not a single minute showing any sign of an attacking plan". New signing Hee Chan Hwang also caused a stir by shoving the fourth official and a Schalke physiotherapist. Nerves are clearly becoming increasingly frayed.
Unfortunately, the prospects of picking up points in the coming weeks are anything but rosy either. Their next three league fixtures are against European contenders Leipzig, Hoffenheim and Stuttgart. As early as this weekend, the worst-case scenario could see them slip from 16th to 18th.
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And Muslic? He made things clear back in August: "We won't be picking up 70 points this season." Staying up, he said, was the overriding and only objective. So the coach himself never pulled the wool over our eyes. Perhaps we simply let ourselves be dazzled by his charisma, promotion and two decent Bundesliga performances.
Muslic never promised a carefree season—and he was absolutely right not to. If Schalke are to stay up, they desperately need points, and they need them now. Ideally, as soon as this Saturday.
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.
