Half a year without a contract
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Loris Karius returns to German professional football and signs a contract with FC Schalke 04 until the end of the season. The 31-year-old goalkeeper will replace Ron-Thorben Hoffmann (25) as number two, who returned to Eintracht Braunschweig on loan after six months pulled. Both transfers took place on Tuesday.
Karius, whose working paper ended after two years at Newcastle United, has been without a club since the summer. With a market value of 800,000 euros, he was one of the most valuable German professionals without a contract – only three are valued higher. The new representative of Justin Heekeren (24) cannot look back on much match practice in recent years. Since the 2020/21 season, Karius has played seven games, four of them in the Bundesliga for Union Berlin, in which he kept three clean sheets.
Karius’ career reached its peak at Liverpool FC, with whom he reached the final of the Champions League as a regular goalkeeper. There, when he was injured, he made two serious mistakes against Real Madrid and was subsequently never used for the Reds again. Shortly afterwards he reached the highest market value of his career of 12 million euros. After stints at Besiktas, Union and Newcastle, he is now starting a new attempt at the Royal Blues.
“After Ron-Thorben Hoffmann’s loan to Eintracht Braunschweig, we didn’t want to see any loss of quality in the goalkeeping team. We achieved this with the signing of Loris Karius. He has many years of experience at the top level. Loris is fit and can start team training straight away. He is the challenger, with Justin Heekeren as number one we start the second half of the season in Braunschweig on Saturday,” Schalke’s director of professional football Youri Mulder is quoted as saying.
Karius added: “I had very good discussions with those responsible at Schalke and am looking forward to training with the team. Schalke 04 is a big club with passionate fans, I always felt that when I played in the arena.”