At the end of the Bundesliga season, FC Schalke 04 were three points behind FC Augsburg, who were 15th in the table. was allowed to celebrate relegation. Counters that were left behind, especially in the first half of the season.
Before Frank Kramer was dismissed as head coach at FC Schalke, the promoted team had only won one game in their first ten games and secured a place in the bottom third of the table right from the start.
Above all, the style of play in the first few months after the resurgence had annoyed many S04 supporters. As does club legend Rüdiger Abramczik.
“The coach we had at the beginning was a disaster,” said the 67-year-old in the “Football Legends Talk” on YouTube, clear words for Frank Kramer, who had to resign early after six points from ten match days.
For Abramczik it is still incomprehensible why Kramer was even installed at Schalke as head coach. Important decision-makers and figures in the club such as Peter Knäbel, Rouven Schröder and Mike Büskens already knew the trainer, who had been relegated from the Bundesliga with Arminia Bielefeld in the previous season, from previous shared experiences at different clubs.
Abramczik on Kramer: “He didn’t fit in here at all”
“And yet he was signed. That always irritates me a bit. I think if I’m relegated with Bielefeld and there was also unrest in Bielefeld, then he doesn’t fit here,” said the ex-national player, who played for FC Schalke even went into goal hunting in the 1970s and 1980s.
“We have to have a coach who fits here, and he didn’t fit here at all. That’s why I think we played catastrophically in the first half of the season and that’s why we only got six points (under Frank Kramer, editor’s note). There was just not enough in the first series.”
The second half of the season under the new head coach went “of course great” with eighth place in the second half of the table, said Abramczik. Ultimately, however, the mortgage from autumn 2022 was too big to be able to stay up in the class.