Record national player Lothar Matthäus recommends that the second division club FC Schalke 04, which is threatened with relegation, return the long-standing supervisory board chairman Clemens Tönnies.
The current situation of the relegated Bundesliga team makes him “sad,” Matthäus said in his “Sky” column. “Schalke always has the most problems with itself. When Clemens Tönnies was still there, the club was successful and played in the Champions League. You can only dream of that now.”
There were “many mistakes” made by the Royal Blues. “I would like to have a Clemens Tönnies back so that Schalke can get better again,” said the 62-year-old.
According to Matthäus, the fish at Schalke stinks from the head. “Problems often start from the top. Schalke either didn’t have the qualified or influential people, there was no continuity in leadership. Peace only comes about when everyone pulls together in the long term. Other clubs have shown the way, but at Schalke it prevailed “There’s always been unrest over the last 20 or 30 years,” he analyzed.
FC Schalke 04 lacks “father figures and leaders”
Tönnies, who ended his involvement at Schalke in 2020, and manager legend Rudi Assauer had the club “under control as father figures and leaders,” wrote Matthäus, “similar to Uli Hoeneß at FC Bayern.”
The 1990 world champion explained: “I don’t know at the moment who the face of the club is at Schalke.”
According to Matthäus, the current S04 team is also better than what seven points from ten games and 16th place in the table suggest.
“I don’t know what the inner workings of Schalke look like, but in my opinion the team is certainly not so bad that they have to play against relegation. But something is wrong and I understand the anger of the fans who were in the last one, “We suffered a lot over the last two years, but always stood by our team,” said the former professional and current TV expert.