The new Schalke coach Karel Geraerts stands for attractive attacking football, but the Belgian’s commitment also poses risks for S04.
Union Saint-Gilloise had 70 goals in the Belgian league at the end of the 2022/23 season – behind Genk it was the second best attacking line in the neighboring country. The coach this season was Karel Geraerts, who played offensive, attractive football. Now the Belgian is supposed to lead the struggling FC Schalke to success. His performance on Monday (October 9, 2023) offered some ideas on how he can do this.
Geraerts with success in Belgium
But in front of the ideas, many fans will ask themselves: Who is this so unknown Karel Geraerts? That is entirely justified – Geraerts has only been traveling in his home country so far. In Belgium he was initially under contract as a sports coordinator at KV Ostende. Then things became quieter for him until he was hired as an assistant coach at Royal Union Saint-Gilloise in 2020.
The new Schalke coach Karel Geraerts with his partner
His story is inextricably linked to the success story of the Belgian club. “I started as an assistant coach in the second division and was at the club for four years. We rebuilt the culture and at the end of my time we reached the quarter-finals of the Europa League and narrowly missed the title in Belgium,” Geraerts summarized. The personal reward for the successful 2022/23 season for Geraerts: being chosen as Belgium’s coach of the year.
Coach prefers offensive football
However, things didn’t go any further for him at Saint-Gilloise and no agreement was reached about working together beyond the summer. Now probably no one expects Geraerts to develop similarly quickly from the second division club to the near-champion with the Knappen – but the offensive in particular could benefit from the new man on the sidelines.
Geraerts has always preferred attractive attacking football during his years at the Belgian club. He himself gave the best example of the strong development of attackers under him: “There is a striker who is now causing a sensation at Bayer Leverkusen.” We’re talking about Victor Boniface, who moved to Leverkusen for around 20 million euros in the summer. The previous season he was involved in 29 goals for Saint-Gilloise.
Geraerts also has to stabilize the defense
The problem: There’s actually no lack of offense at Schalke – the squad there offers a lot of quality. 14 own hits are quite acceptable, although not outstanding. The defense is much more of a weak point: the Royal Blues have already conceded 20 goals, making them the second-worst defense in the 2nd Bundesliga.
Geraerts is therefore faced with the challenge of combining his attractive offensive football with defensive stability. The new coach believes in it: “I see great potential in the team.” To do this, he must in turn achieve the feat of developing young players as much as possible. Sports director Peter Knäbel emphasized: “I believe success and further development go together. Karel has already proven that at Saint-Gilloise.”
Sports director Knäbel: “Bold decision”
Difficult and high demands, even without setting a specific goal such as a table space. Far from these playful visions, the commitment does present some risks: Geraerts has only worked in Belgium so far and speaks predominantly English and not German. Sports director André Hechelmann emphasized that this was by no means an “exclusion criterion”: “Karel understands most of German and he will learn to speak it quickly.”
In addition to the language barrier comes the experience. Although Geraerts has had a lot of success in Belgium, Saint-Gilloise has a wealthy owner – poker player Tony Bloom – and data-based, excellent scouting. That also helped Geraerts. Experience abroad? None. Especially not in the German lower house, which tends to focus on duels. “The decision is courageous,” said Knäbel. But in the end it’s about “conviction and content”.
Finally continuity with the coach?
However, that’s what we’ve heard again and again at S04 when it comes to coaches. The last Belgian coach at S04, a certain Marc Wilmots in 2003, lasted less than four months in the dugout. Some trainers suffered a similar fate in the recent past. The last person with a record of work for significantly more than a year was David Wagner – employed from July 2019 to September 2020. Since then there have been ten changes on the sidelines.
When asked why consistency could now work under Geraerts, he replied: “I have a clear philosophy of how football works. This also includes a large mental area. I firmly believe that success works step by step. ” Also words that one often heard in one way or another from his predecessors. We can only hope that Geraerts will come true this time.
