Everything could be fine for Huub Stevens on his 70th birthday this Wednesday. If it weren’t for FC Schalke.
What Stevens sees week after week in his native Netherlands or in the stadium of his favorite club hits him hard.
“You can’t be happy there,” said Schalke’s coach of the century. “Anyone with a blue and white heart is worried about this.” His is particularly large. And it’s bleeding a lot right now. Watching Schalke 04 fight against relegation from the second Bundesliga is tough for Stevens, who experienced completely different royal blue times.
Biggest success: The UEFA Cup with Schalke
At the side of club officials such as the former manager Rudi Assauer, who has already died, and the former Schalke boss Clemens Tönnies, Stevens won titles and played internationally. In 1997 he led the Revierclub to the UEFA Cup triumph and in 2001 and 2002 to win the DFB Cup.
Huub Stevens won the UEFA Cup with Sxchalke in 1997
“We had a lot of fun,” says Stevens looking back – apart from the pain of narrowly missing out on the title in 2001, when he and Assauer cried snot and water at the “Championship of Hearts”. “What was, was,” says Stevens now. He has been Schalke’s coach a total of four times since 1996 and couldn’t say no in 2020 when he was asked to help out again for a Bundesliga game. Even back then, the Revierklub was doing very badly as it staggered towards the second division.
Stevens is concerned about his former club Schalke 04
Schalke coach Huub Stevens after the DFB Cup victory in 2002
But what the former Dutch international sees three years and two Bundesliga relegations later makes him even sadder. He last sat in the stadium in Gelsenkirchen at the end of October for the 3-2 win against Hannover and saw an even better performance than the devastating 3-5 loss in Düsseldorf on Saturday.
“But the way you play football – no,” says Stevens. This is not his Schalke, not the quality in the squad that he still knew. “The way I see it, it will be very difficult,” says Stevens about Schalke’s chances in the fight against relegation.
Stevens only in Observer role
However, Schalke’s condition cannot affect his personal well-being. “I feel good, I feel good,” Stevens says, laughing. That was not always so.
In the past, pericarditis caused him to finally end his coaching career. He felt this was a “yellow card” for him. He learned the lessons from it, recovered and is now enjoying the time he has left: “I hope that I have a few more years on earth. That I can enjoy it and spend time with the children and grandchildren.”
The whole family gets together again on Wednesday. It is celebrated “in small groups”. And probably also talked shop. Because football still plays a big role in his life, even if only as an observer.
Schalke and Eindhoven Stevens “Clubs of the Heart”
According to his own statement, he regularly follows each of his former clubs. And those were a few: Roda Kerkrade, PSV Eindhoven, Red Bull Salzburg, PAOK Saloniki, Schalke, Hertha BSC, 1. FC Köln, Hamburger SV, VfB Stuttgart and TSG Hoffenheim. But he actually only really lost his heart at two clubs: Schalke in Germany and PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
“That’s obvious when you’ve been at a club for so long.” The former Dutch international was already active as a professional in Eindhoven for eleven years. He is still a regular at the PSV stadium. And as the confident leader of the Eredivisie, Eindhoven is giving him a lot of joy.
A return as a coach that many colleagues still flirt with, even at his age? Excluded. “That’s clear. At my age, you don’t really need to be in front of a group anymore. The young boys should do it now,” confirms Stevens. And laughs piercingly.
