Hardly any professionals, but twelve talented players training with Miron Muslic

FC Schalke 04 can take a breather during the international break. The tension surrounding the personnel situation was also evident in training.

FC Schalke 04 scraped through to the international break, almost on their last legs. The Royal Blues had been facing major personnel problems recently. Nevertheless, they celebrated a 1-0 victory in the top match against SV Elversberg and were therefore able to go into the break in good spirits, which will mainly be used to gather strength and lick their wounds. When coach Miron Muslic gathered his players back for training on Tuesday, there were only a dozen or so professionals on the pitch: Loris Karius, Justin Heekeren, Hasan Kurucay, Adrian Gantenbein, Felipe Sanchez, Anton Donkor, Henning Matriciani, Max Grüger, Soufiane El-Faouzi, Ron Schallenberg, Kenan Karaman, Mauro Zalazar, and Dylan Leonard.

Numerous youth players filled out the training group. Five players from the U19 team were given the opportunity to show what they could do. In addition to Clinton Wilson, Malik Tubic, Silas Thier, and Ben Weber, Mika Wallentowitz was also there. The 17-year-old celebrated his first start with the pros over the weekend and put in a convincing performance (WAZ rating 2.5).

Seven U23 talents also took part in Tuesday’s session: Bojan Potnar, Paul Pöpperl, Tim Dietrich, Magsnur Rösner, and Vincenzo Onofrietti. Ayman Gulasi and Mika Khadr also joined in. Both were part of the professional squad at the weekend.

Points Table

Muslic has had to get creative recently, especially in attack, due to the personnel situation. Christopher Antwi-Adjei, Christian Gomis, and Bryan Lasme have been out with injuries for some time, and Amin Younes is also currently unavailable. On Saturday, Peter Remmert injured his thigh during the warm-up. In addition, S04 will have to do without midfielder Janik Bachmann and the long-term injured Zaid Tchibara and Tomas Kalas. Nikola Katic (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Moussa Sylla (Mali), Vitalie Becker (Germany U20), and Mertcan Ayhan (Turkey U21) are away with their national teams.