As far as the rumors from the transfer market are concerned, he was “quite relaxed,” said Malick Thiaw after Schalke 04’s 6-1 loss to Union Berlin. The defender continued and assured: “My focus is on Schalke.” The focus is now on two “very, very groundbreaking” games, next weekend in Stuttgart and then against VfL Bochum. “Good training work” is now required, said Thiaw.
Why the 21-year-old defender knew how to describe the situation with so much wise composure was revealed to the audience the next day at the latest. On Sunday, Thiaw boarded a plane and traveled to Italy in a relaxed manner to settle his future. Investigations and consultations were pending at AC Milan, and Thiaw’s employment contract with the Italian champions had already been largely negotiated between the three parties involved. The proceeds for Schalke should be ten million euros plus a share in a possible resale. Sports director Rouven Schröder is already looking for a replacement.
At first that sounds like a success story: Thiaw was raised in his own boarding school in Gelsenkirchen, the return on training would be considerable. But a weekend with six goals against – not against Bayern, but against 1. FC Union – is not suitable to celebrate the sale of the U21 international as a coup. Central defender Thiaw also played his part in the downfall against the clever Berliners, but it was a comparatively small part. In addition to Marius Bülter, he was one of those Schalke players in previous games who have consistently and reliably demonstrated Bundesliga level. The fact that he is now being sold provokes the question of the political priorities of the resurgent.
The Schalke management has proclaimed that the rehabilitation of the club treasury and the balanced account balance should be given priority, but they have also placed narrow limits on the actions of sports director Schröder and the chance of staying in the class. Schröder had to learn that at the beginning of the long, hot summer: not taking over the promoted player Ko Itakura – for a fixed fee of six million euros – set the standard for transfer policy, it was the result of strict spending discipline. Schalke no longer make speculative bets on football legs that may be far too expensive, it said. But Itakura, 25, is showing with sensational performances in Mönchengladbach that betting on the Japanese defender’s value increasing would have been about as risky as investing in Swiss Confederation bonds.
Players like Itakura and Churlinov would have done the climber good.
Schalke also let the successfully trained and expandable attacker Darko Churlinov, 22, go because the three million euro transfer fee to VfB Stuttgart did not fit into the economic scheme. Of course nobody knows whether Schalke would have looked better with Itakura and Churlinov against Union on Saturday. What is known: Itakura’s presence and prudence would have done the previously unstable back line good, Churlinov’s pace and bravado could have enlivened the static offensive game. And that, for example, raises the question of whether Schalke’s honorable, reasonable behavior could cost them dearly: a relegation would be the most difficult economic scenario to be expected.
Itakura’s place in Schalke’s defense center is now occupied by Maya Yoshida, 34, who is not only Itakura’s compatriot but also his superior as captain of the national team. The experienced Yoshida has many good qualities, but he also had to admit on Saturday that he still has to learn robust, fast Bundesliga football. He will not be able to compensate for the natural lack of speed, but the level of resistance will. “Today we experienced the physicality and assertiveness required to play in the Bundesliga,” said coach Frank Kramer.
The newcomer Schalke was able to keep up in the first three games of the season, against the clever, well-organized Unioner the deficits in the fundamentally rebuilt squad were revealed. In the Schalke game there is a lack of speed and creativity, the center forward Simon Terodde is often in a losing position as the lone recipient of high passes. This time, the team added individual mistakes, weaknesses in duels and a desolate team structure in the decisive scenes to the substantial deficits.
The result was “too high”, said Union Berlin coach Urs Fischer. His eleven, who scored almost every shot on the Schalke goal, benefited from the course of the game – from Yannick Haberer’s 3-1 immediately before and Sheraldo Becker’s 4-1 immediately after the break. “Our half-time lead was rather happy. Schalke were more aggressive and agile, we were sometimes sleepy – but also very efficient,” said Fischer and didn’t mean that as consoling flattery. That’s how it really happened up to 1:4.
Nevertheless, Schalke suffered a well-deserved debacle. The team appeared “too sloppy, too soft”, there was no structure, the players “ran in different directions, “sometimes here, sometimes there”. That sounded like a disturbing criticism of principle – mainly because the words did not come from coach Kramer, but from defense chief Yoshida.