Brought as a “pearl diver”
© Imago
After only 16 months, Ben Manga is history again at Schalke 04. The squad planner presented with many advance laurels in May 2024 was released from the second division club on Monday. It is the consequence of various developments in recent months.
According to the “kicker”, three causes are mainly for separation from the 51-year-old. Manga was once brought as a “pearl diver” to get unknown players, who should then develop an extreme market value in a manageable time. This transfer philosophy changed this summer. During the past change period, the royal blue mainly relied on leaders, examples are Timo Becker or Nikola Katic. Manga also slipped further back in the hierarchy. Frank Baumann was brought as a new sports director, and yours Mulder also made a permanent sports director. Thus, the influence of manga has been disappearing more and more in recent months.
According to the report, the third point is its transfers, which only worked to a limited extent. From 17 new additions last season, only Moussa Sylla and Loris Karius have proven to be sustainable reinforcements. Manga also won players that the coach did not put on. Ex-coach Karel Geraerts sometimes had an open argument. According to the “WAZ”, there were also considerable differences with Baumann, for example in the manner of scouting. Manga has his very own style and rather preferred live scouting, in which he trusts his personal network while Baumann rely on a mix of live, video and data scouting. Overall, manga generated a plus of 14.3 million euros with transfers, but the squad value dropped by almost 15 percent from 33.6 million to EUR 28.6 million during this time.
Manga-off at Schalke: variety of criticisms and differences
The “picture” also hits a similar notch, according to which there have been doubts about manga for a long time. The criticisms here are also a false coaching selection with ex-coach Kees van Wonderen last season, an unstructured way of working and no management qualities. S04 CEO Matthias Tillmann suggested Baumann in April to separate himself from manga when he was imagined. Baumann wanted to get his own picture beforehand and is said to have often considered the proposals from Manga and his scouts to be in need of improvement in the last transfer period. Which is why you often often made decisions past manga.
Specifically, the newspaper calls Hasan Kuruçay, Katic and Soufiane el-faouzi. In the event of the first mentioned, Baumann first came to manga so that he took a close look at the central defender. Manga is said to have come to the feedback that there are significantly better professionals for the Gelsenkircheners. In the end, manga should only have been informed that the Kuruçay association is obliged. Manga is not really part of the negotiations at Katic, for whom the new coach Miron Muslic had worked. Instead, he proposed other candidates, who were said to have been far too expensive. Schalke became aware of El-Faouzi due to its running strength, but the scouting department is said to have spoken out against an obligation. The midfielder came anyway and has not missed a game so far.
There were also other ideas about the coaching question. According to the newspaper, Manga Raúl and Markus favored the beginning, which, however, did not make it into the final selection. Tillmann and Baumann, on the other hand, gave the impulse for Muslic. In addition to the Austrian, concrete negotiations are also said to have been managed with Horst Steffen, who is now on the sidelines at Werder Bremen, and with Lukas Kwasniok, who signed at 1. FC Köln.
The barrel to overflow from manga, however, brought his second task, the management of the club smiths, almost completely neglected from the boss’s point of view.
Manga separation of Schalke is discussed in TM community
In the community, the time of the announcement was particularly surprising, but not the separation itself. User “Rzyk” wrote: “It simply shows that the unrest of the last season was probably from him. To let the ‘command’ to Geraert’s Felipe Sánchez played at the time, showed that there were problems in communication between trainer and manga and he also explained to the trainer. Why manga was not really visible in the past few weeks.
“Siggi4peter”, on the other hand, believes: “Manga has already lost a large part of his reputation for me and is currently reminiscent of Mislintat. It would be surprised if he finds a job again where he is so ‘pompous’ announced and should bring in his system.”
Manga’s tasks are now being taken over by Baumann. As a replacement, user “Blackbeard20” could imagine a candidate from the Netherlands. “Ben Manga is more of a scout of old school. I assume that his successor will rather deal with data -based scouting. I would rely on a good mix. After Baumann has brought someone with Miron Muslic, who has so far been pleasantly surprised by the squad planner/head of scouting. Personnel. “