Schalkes centre-back Leo Greiml has to leave the pitch early in the 2:2 against Enschede. The injured knee is badly damaged. Diagnosis pending.

After the first treatment, the thumbs were still raised as a sign: I’ll manage somehow, but Leo Greiml ran more badly than well to the sidelines. But when the FC Schalke 04 centre-back came back in the sixth minute of the test match against Twente Enschede (2:2) and had to sit down again after a few metres, the 22-year-old Austrian buried his face in his hands.

A few days before Schalke’s season opener at Hamburger SV on Friday, Leo Greiml has his coach Thomas Reis and the fans worried: “I don’t know what’s wrong with him yet, we’ll have to wait for the examinations,” Reis said immediately after the dress rehearsal, “we hope it’s not that bad.”

Those who saw Greiml shaking his head and close to tears when Thomas Reis took him in his arms after his substitution, however, suspected that the Austrian could be out of action for a long time at Schalke 04. Leo Greiml was hit on the right knee – the one that already had a long history of injuries.

What had happened? Twente goalkeeper Lars Unnerstall had hit a ball far forward in the opening minutes, Leo Greiml and Marcin Kaminski both went for the ball and got into each other’s way, even in slow motion it was not clear whether they had made minimal contact. “I was annoyed at first, because I would actually have liked a better collusion there,” said Schalke coach Thomas Reis. “He didn’t come up well then. Whether he twisted his knee, I don’t know. He said he felt something. “

For the team it was “a bit of a shock”, as Simon Terodde said later. The new Schalke captain feels for Leo Greiml: “He is an absolute workhorse, the way he fought his way back. I hope it’s nothing serious, even though it looked bad.”

What makes one fear bad things is the fact that Leo Greiml has had frequent problems with his right knee. In October 2021, the 1.87 metre tall defender, who joined Schalke 04 from Rapid Wien for the 2022/23 season, tore the cruciate ligament in that very knee – he was out for 252 days. Then, almost exactly one year later, a meniscus injury forced him to take a three-month break. Another absence would be very bad for Leo Greiml and for Schalke 04.