Schalke get knocked down, but get up again to show they are no joke

If you’ve got an early chance to nail your colours to the mast and make a good impression with your new fans, you have to take it – and that’s exactly what Nico Schlotterbeck did. Earlier this week, shortly after making his Bundesliga debut for Borussia Dortmund, the young Germany centre-back was a guest on a chat show on the club’s in-house television channel in front of a live audience.

The Sky presenter Sebastian Hellmann, Schlotterbeck’s fellow panellist, mentioned an upcoming assignment at Schalke’s game with Borussia Mönchengladbach, the Top-Spiel (top game) of the second weekend of the league season, in the prime Saturday early evening, 6.30pm kick-off slot. “They have Top-Spiel in Schalke?” Schlotterbeck wryly chipped in, naturally bringing the house down with a ribbing of BVB’s local rivals.

Schalke have received more than their share of digs in the last few years. It has been a steady slide downhill since Domenico Tedesco was fired after March 2019’s 7-0 Champions League (that’s right) defeat at Manchester City. Leroy Sané, a star pupil of the club’s vaunted academy, scored in that one, almost four years to the day after he’d scored for Die Königsblauen in a thrilling win at Real Madrid. The rest is the stuff of infamy – the inglorious David Wagner reign, the four-coach relegation season, even flirting with Tasmania Berlin’s 31-match record of Bundesliga games without a win (when Schalke beat Hoffenheim in January 2021 to avoid that, Tasmania were as relieved as they were).

Coming back was not easy. Even amid the joy and relief of promotion back to the Bundesliga at the first attempt, there was the prospect of more bills to pay. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Schalke felt compelled to cut ties with