Pre-Season Preview: Schalke 04

Schalke Impressed Last Sea­son With A Second-Place Fin­ish In The Bundesliga.

Felix Mag­ath made a stun­ning start to his Schalke career after baf­fling crit­ics and defied expec­ta­tions after lead­ing Die Konigs­blauen to a second-placed Bun­desliga fin­ish last sea­son. The sea­son prior to last, Mag­ath was with VfL Wolfs­burg and man­aged to win the Bun­desliga that year. Cer­tainly, Mag­ath is capa­ble of the absolute best and he will be look­ing to extend his suc­cess with Schalke this sea­son. Since his side are in the Cham­pi­ons League again this sea­son, we may see Schalke lose sight of pri­or­i­ties and fiz­zle out into a mid-table posi­tion. Under Mag­ath, though, the impos­si­ble is cer­tainly always within sight.

Key Play­ers

Germany’s World Cup goal­keeper, Manuel Neuer, will mar­shall his penalty area and be the last bas­tion of defense for Schalke 04 this sea­son. Neuer has been at the club since 1991, where he played for the youth team aged just 5 years old. The goal­keeper has grown up a Schalke boy and has served his club admirably. Should he con­tinue to impress, he will con­tinue to force him­self into Joachim Loew’s thinking.

Ivan Rakitic is the man in the team who will orches­trate Schalke attacks. His flair and quick pass­ing is crit­i­cal in the cre­ation of goal-scoring oppor­tu­ni­ties for Die Knap­pen. He will tuck in just behind Schalke’s strik­ers, and pro­vide the cre­ativ­ity that every side craves when going for­ward. He will look to slip into space between the opposition’s mid­field and defense, and act as a tre­quartista for his side, in the mold of a player like Clarence Seedorf.

New­com­ers

The arrival of Raul Gon­za­lez seems absolutely immi­nent after Mag­ath him­self has come out and talked about how Raul would feel right at home play­ing for Schalke. Ruud van Nis­tel­rooy, an ex-teamate of Raul’s, has also expressed his delight at see­ing him ply his trade in the Bun­desliga. The arrival of Raul, for Schalke, would be a total god­send. After the depar­ture of top-scorer Kevin Kuranyi, Schalke do lack a lit­tle bit of qual­ity up front. Raul, def­i­nitely, would pro­vide a killer touch and a clin­i­cal fin­ish in and around the oppo­si­tion 18-yard box that Schalke could thrive off of.

Younger Levan Kenia will also be look­ing to step up in a big way this sea­son. The young Geor­gian mid­fielder has made just 11 appear­ances for the club, but at only 19 years old he does look a fan­tas­tic prospect. Kenia, this sea­son, will be look­ing to stake a claim for Rakitic’s cre­ative mid­field role, and we should see a lot of pos­i­tive things from the young mid­fielder this season.

Expec­ta­tions

With Felix Mag­ath in charge, you can almost get the feel­ing that expec­ta­tions dont even enter his mind. Exceed­ing them, though, cer­tainly does. While the squad has taken heavy losses in the trans­fer mar­ket after the depar­tures of Kevin Kuranyi, Marcelo Bor­don and Heiko West­er­mann, they have looked to bring in very com­pe­tent replace­ments for those play­ers in Raul, Christoph Met­zelder and Kyr­i­akos Papadopou­los. For Mag­ath, with the added pres­sure of the Cham­pi­ons League, this sea­son may be one of con­stant strug­gle. Though, we’ve seen Mag­ath pull off the nearly impos­si­ble before. Schalke are very hard to call, but I do see them once again push­ing for a Cham­pi­ons League spot this season.