The New Gaffer: Introducing Rutten at Schalke 04

This week we make the short trip west on the A40 from Dort­mund past Bochum to Gelsenkirchen, home to Schalke 04 and their new coach, Fred Rut­ten. Much like his new Ruhr rival, Jür­gen Klopp, Rut­ten has been a one club man for almost his entire 30-year play­ing and coach­ing career, all with FC Twente (five years at PSV notwith­stand­ing). His first expo­sure to Ger­man foot­ball will be as part of the Revierderby, arguably the country’s best rivalry.

In the Bun­desliga era (since 1963) the tie has been finely bal­anced. With 26 wins Dort­mund cur­rently lead Schalke by one, with 21 draws between them. Over the past four and a half decades Schalke and Dort­mund have tended to alter­nate peri­ods of suc­cess. Expect a shift in Schalke’s favor this upcom­ing sea­son, although not as a direct result of Rutten’s appoint­ment. The 2003/2004 sea­son saw the two teams deci­sively diverge and that should con­tinue on into the 2008/09 sea­son. Dortmund’s posi­tion has, to put it diplo­mat­i­cally, nose­dived. Schalke, in the mean­time, have bounced between 2nd and 4th over those same four years:

To con­tinue this run of form, the club’s best since the hal­cyon days of 1933–1945 (six cham­pi­onships under the Nazis), Schalke must con­tend with per­son­nel issues. Trite but true. Three in par­tic­u­lar stand out: the injury to Manuel Neuer, and the inte­gra­tion of Orlando Enge­laar and Jef­fer­son Far­fan into the lineup.

Manuel Neuer — Out until Mid-September with a bro­ken foot suf­fered in a pre­sea­son friendly against SpVgg Erken­schwick. Neuer stands, along­side Rene Adler and Michael Rens­ing, as the like­li­est can­di­date to take over long-term goal­keep­ing duties for Ger­many after Lehmann’s inter­na­tional retire­ment. His immense poten­tial is already being real­ized, hav­ing been voted goal­keeper of year in 2007 in a kicker poll. His best per­for­mance was undoubt­edly his one man show against Porto in the Cham­pi­ons League. Math­ias Schober is the nat­ural replace­ment, hav­ing been Hansa Rostock’s first choice keeper the six years (2001/02 — 2006/07) prior to arriv­ing at the Veltins-Arena. No one will con­fuse Schober for Lev Yashin or Ser­gio Goy­cochea when it comes time to repeat Neuer’s penalty hero­ics. Hav­ing Neuer back fit and healthy is like a new signing.

Orlando Enge­laar — He was hugely impres­sive for the Nether­lands over the sum­mer at Euro ’08. His sig­na­ture was a major, but under­stand­able, coup given that Rut­ten was his man­ager at FC Twente. A rel­a­tive late bloomer to fame the 28-year old’s stock has risen con­sid­er­ably since his inter­na­tional debut last year against South Korea. His pre­ferred posi­tion is as a defen­sive mid­fielder, although his scor­ing touch and pass­ing skill are more rem­i­nis­cent of a deep-lying play­maker than a Dutch Makélélé or Gattuso.

Jef­fer­son Far­fan — Con­tin­u­ing the Dutch theme is the Peru­vian Jef­fer­son Far­fan, brought to Schalke from PSV to replace the oft-injured and inef­fec­tive Søren Larsen. Far­fan is look­ing to con­tinue the good run of form Peru­vian strik­ers have shown in the Bun­desliga, like Clau­dio Piz­zaro and Paolo Guer­rero. Over the last four years he scored almost every other game, which bodes well for his new club.

Finally a major con­cern for Schalke fans must be Rutten’s coach­ing expe­ri­ence. Although he has spent three decades around foot­ball in play­ing and coach­ing capac­i­ties, his time alone in charge is actu­ally quite mea­ger. He was the sole gaffer of FC Twente on three sep­a­rate occa­sions for a total of only five years before switch­ing to Schalke 04. The rest of this time was spent in var­i­ous other func­tions, mostly as an assis­tant man­ager. How pre­pared is he? PSV did well when he was there (2002–2006, Cham­pi­ons League semi­fi­nal­ists in 2004/05), but this can be attrib­uted to Guus Hid­dink, who has found suc­cess at every stop.

Like Jür­gen Klopp (the two inti­mately linked as long as they remain with their Revierderby clubs), Rut­ten is being given a chance to shine on one of the bright­est stages in Ger­man foot­ball. His task is com­par­a­tively eas­ier, although the expec­ta­tions may be too high. Mirko Slomka, the pre­vi­ous man­ager (ignor­ing the interim Michael Büskens) was the Bundesliga’s sec­ond most suc­cess­ful trainer behind Ottmar Hitzfeld in his two years at Schalke. Fail­ing to advance in Europe or to end the club’s 50 year cham­pi­onship drought cost Slomka his job.

Will Rut­ten end up like Slomka as just another vic­tim of Schalke’s nev­erend­ing quest to replace Huub Stevens? He is the team’s 9th trainer since the end of the 2001/02 sea­son and the end of Stevens’ affil­i­a­tion with the club. Does Rut­ten have the play­ers now in Enge­laar and Far­fan to finally cap­ture the Bun­desliga crown and bring peace of mind to Gelsenkirchen? Or are Schalke des­tined to con­tinue being sec­ond best?

Next week: Mar­tin Jol at Hamburg

Tagged as: Borussia Dortmund, Champions League, FC Twente, Fred Rutten, Guus Hiddink, Huub Stevens, Jefferson Farfan, Jürgen Klopp, Manuel Neuer, Mathias Schober, Michael Bueskens, Michael Rensing, Mirko Slomka, Netherlands, Orlando Engelaar, Paolo Guerrero, Porto, PSV, Rene Adler, Revierderby