Schalke coach Thomas Reis has still not received reinforcements for his offensive. Image: www.imago-images.de / imago images
Bundesliga
Schalke’s coach Thomas Reis was actually looking forward to Tim Skarke. The offensive player should give Schalke the much-needed momentum in attack. Because the bottom of the table in the Bundesliga has scored just 13 goals in 15 games so far. And hits are urgently needed in the fight for relegation.
Reis said at the beginning of the year: “We know that he is in the juice and has scored test goals at Union. Tim admits that he would like to come to us. That was perhaps a liberation to fully prepare for Berlin to pull through.” And the head coach even had hopes of using Skarke in the second half of the season against Frankfurt on Saturday.
Skarke deal was actually as good as fixed
But Skarke did not travel to the Royal Blues’ training camp and will not switch to Gelsenkirchen in January either. The burst change fits into the past months of chaos at S04 around the departure of sports director Rouven Schröder and the financial difficulties of the club.
The deal was actually close to completion weeks ago. “We basically agree with the player. The player would like to come to us. But there is also a releasing club. Union Berlin has not agreed so far,” said sports director Peter Knäbel.
Tim Skarke (right) made a good impression on coach Urs Fischer in the training camp at Union Berlin. Image: www.imago-images.de / imago images
Skarke, who is still under contract with Union until 2024, should be loaned out and collect playing time until the end of the season. If they stayed up in the league, the Gelsenkircheners would have liked to sign the offensive player, Sky reported just before Christmas. In the current season, the 26-year-old has only made three short appearances for a total of 104 minutes in the Bundesliga and 28 minutes in the Europa League.
Union coach Urs Fischer prevented the change
In Berlin, however, head coach Urs Fischer exercised his veto right. Although head of sport Oliver Ruhnert, who worked for Schalke in the youth division for years, already agreed with S04, Skarke remains in Berlin.
The Iron Trust the 26-year-old in the second half of the breakthrough. Because Fischer also had a 4-4-2 system trained in the Spanish training camp, in which Skarke’s strengths come into their own.
In addition, Union has a real mammoth program in the second half of the season. The Köpenickers are still represented in all three competitions (championship, DFB Cup and Europa League). For this, coach Fischer wants to rotate a lot in order to always have fresh forces on the field.
There are footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo, Gigi Buffon or Zlatan Ibrahimović who still want to play football after they are 40 years old. And then there are footballers who retire in their early 30s. A few days ago it was Gareth Bale who resigned at the age of 33. A year earlier, Kun Agüero, also aged 33, had given up his football boots – albeit for health reasons.
