Schalke 04 seems to have forgotten how to win. Even Edin Dzeko can’t prevent the team from falling from the top of the table.

Edin Dzeko looked on helplessly as his Schalke teammates collapsed. Amidst the cheers of the fans, the beaming debutant in the starting lineup said goodbye when he was substituted after his double. The veteran star on the bench was not at all pleased that his teammates then carelessly gave away what had seemed a comfortable lead. At the end of an afternoon in which the miners once again missed their chance to break free, his expression darkened.

“I thought 2-0 would be enough, but in this league it’s not enough,” Dzeko lamented after the 2-2 (0-0) draw against Dynamo Dresden on Sky, adding: “We didn’t concede the two goals because I was already gone.” In any case, he said he was “not 100 percent satisfied.”

The statement seemed like an understatement. Darmstadt 98 took advantage of the crisis-stricken Royal Blues’ slip-up against 1. FC Kaiserslautern (4-0), knocking the autumn champions off the top spot for the first time since matchday 13. Suddenly, Dzeko and his teammates have something to lose in the final sprint of the season.

“The result is very disappointing, I’m totally annoyed,” captain Kenan Karaman grumbled after the latest setback in the tight promotion race: “We had the game completely under control in the second half and scored two excellent goals. That should be enough for three points at home.”

Coach Miron Muslic’s team has been waiting for a win for five games now – and in view of the slump, the question is now haunting Schalke: Are the Royal Blues still going to throw away the promotion that many observers in the public eye believed was almost certain? In any case, S04 is only in 16th place in the second half of the season table, even though sporting director Frank Baumann made some big moves in the winter transfer market.

The defense in particular, recently the showpiece of Muslic’s efficiency-oriented system, is looking worryingly shaky. The fact that Schalke conceded six goals in their last three games after conceding only ten in the first half of the season is “too much,” complained Dzeko, who is still waiting for his first win in a Schalke shirt: “You can see that it’s not enough. We just have to give more.”

Even without the star striker on the field.