On March 7, 30 years ago, the Ruhr area press not only reported in detail about the sneering comments by Schalke head coach Aleksandar Ristic on his team’s 1-1 draw against Wattenscheid 09 (“weak in all parts of the team”), but also about access for the Next season: President Günter Eichberg has agreed on a contract until 1996 with midfielder Mike Büskens, 23, from bottom of the table Fortuna Düsseldorf.
At the time, no one could have imagined the historical significance of this transaction. In a way, the signature sealed Büskens’ fate and his conversion from a Rhinelander to a man from the Ruhr area, with Schalke 04 he entered into a bond for life. In the meantime, he had ventured out into the wide world, where he earned services as a coach for Greuther Fürth and Rapid Wien, but he was always drawn back to the familiar court in Gelsenkirchen, where he is now – on the 30th anniversary his first commitment – was again entrusted with a special mission. Büskens, 53, is to succeed Dimitrios Grammozis, who has been on leave, to lead Schalke’s recently crooked team to promotion from the second division. “Mike is the one who can do it,” believes sporting director Rouven Schröder.
If he doesn’t make it, no one will blame him. Schalke currently only have an outside chance and Büskens will definitely fulfill the other part of his job: in the summer he will make room for a new head coach and his team, which he will then join as an independently employed assistant coach. An alternative to Büskens was not even considered, Schröder reported.
When the club announced the entry of the old hero on Monday evening, arithmetic and puzzles began in the audience. How many times in the 21st century had this message been heard? The club first appointed him commander alongside Youri Mulder in 2008, and after the first game many fans wanted to make the interim solution permanent: Kevin Kuranyi scored four goals in the 5-0 win against Energie Cottbus. In the summer, however, Fred Rutten came – and the following spring, after Rutten had to leave again, the proven duo again.
This time Büskens has to manage the temporary job without his partner Mulder, who is now acting as an official. Supervisory Board Mulder took part in the deliberations that led to the change of coach after the 3:4 against Hansa Rostock. Schröder ended Grammozi’s chapter on Tuesday with an obituary for the “outstanding person, sportsman and coach”, but also indicated that patience with the outstanding man had already been strained. After the often failed Rostock game, “no gut decision” was made, but a critical observation was completed. It sounded as if Schröder regretted not having acted earlier.
As befits a club befuddled by its own legend, this change of coach also comes with special ingredients. The fact that Huub Stevens faked his own death by setting his car on fire in order not to have to intervene again as a rescuer was initially just an illustrated joke on the Internet. But the eternal ex-coach was actually in demand again: Büskens had asked his teacher for advice on whether he should accept the job – Stevens said yes. The designated paramedic then had to tell the club that he was not healthy himself – he had been in corona quarantine since the weekend. The club is now recording the training rounds leading up to the game in Ingolstadt on Sunday so that she can study Büskens in the office.
For the time being, a reduced coaching staff will coordinate the work, in addition to Grammozis, his assistant Sven Piepenbrock and goalkeeping coach Will Coort also had to go. Schalke were able to replace the latter at low cost by reinstating Simon Henzler, who had been dismissed in the summer. Conveniently, he was still on the payroll anyway.
When the club promoted Büskens to permanent assistant coach last spring – to “Hermann Gerland von Schalke”, as he himself put it – he had both monument preservation and popular tradition in mind. But is a man who is practically a museum piece the right person to give the team orientation and a spirit of optimism? Büskens himself had worked at Grammozis’ side long enough (albeit with an apparently growing distance). Rouven Schröder has no doubts: As a “assistant” he “only offered his ideas, but was not able to implement them. Now he can do a lot more with his very own Schalke-Pure-Art.”