Akte Schalke S04

Steckbrief – Facts, figures and milestones

Fußballclub Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e.V., commonly known as FC Schalke 04, is a sports club founded in 1904 in the Schalke district of Gelsenkirchen.

With seven German championships (most recently in 1958), five DFB-Pokal triumphs and the 1997 UEFA Cup victory, they rank among the most successful football clubs in Germany, occupying seventh place in the Bundesliga all-time table (as of December 2019).

With 158,500 members (as of July 1, 2019), FC Schalke 04 are Germany's second-largest sports club by membership and the fourth-largest worldwide. Since August 2001, the professionals — traditionally known as "die Knappen" (the Miners) or "die Königsblauen" (the Royal Blues) — have played their home matches at the Veltins-Arena.

The Veltins-Arena, known as Arena AufSchalke until 2005, holds 62,171 spectators. The multi-purpose stadium with a retractable roof and a sliding pitch also serves as a venue for concerts, opera performances and a regular biathlon competition.

The Ruhr region stands for rugged, working-class football, and Schalke is the ultimate symbol of that grafter's game. First the graft, then the skill. That's nonsense. It may hold true for the decade of Schalke's agricultural football in the 1980s or the Euro Fighters of the 1990s.

But what few people know: it doesn't hold for S04's most successful eras before the Bundesliga was introduced. The term "Schalker Kreisel" (Schalke Carousel) is well enough known, but that it described an intricate short-passing game — an early Ruhr-style tiki-taka that was anything but "kick and rush" working-class football — is far less understood.

The championship team built around Bernie Klodt also thrived on ball circulation rather than the brute force of burly men, as author Christoph Biermann recounts in his book "Wenn wir vom Fußball träumen." "Mining, steelworks — that was hard labour, and from that came the belief that the football here was fierce and hard-fought too," the championship-winning player recalled.

Germany's greatest football rivalry is between Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund. That is common knowledge. Less well known is that this enmity is a relatively modern phenomenon — without an especially long tradition. It certainly didn't exist before the Second World War. There was no reason for it: BVB were too insignificant.

On the return journey from Berlin, the Reichsbahn stopped 35 kilometres short of Gelsenkirchen. In open cars, the Schalke players drove through Dortmund's city centre, cheered by crowds, and became the first football team to sign the city's golden book. Hard to believe, but: "There was a deep sympathy" between the two clubs in those early days.

0-11 in Mönchengladbach: Schalke's greatest footballing humiliation in the Bundesliga was a 0-11 defeat at Borussia Mönchengladbach on January 7, 1967.

1-6 against Real Madrid: At the Veltins-Arena in 2014, Real Madrid dismantled Schalke 6-1 in the Champions League.

1-7 in Munich: Schalke experienced a Bundesliga low point in September 1977 at Munich's Olympiastadion. A year after their 7-0 triumph at Bayern, they arrived as league leaders and lost 1-7 to a crisis-hit Bayern side — who had been down to ten men since the 28th minute. A classic case of successful revenge.

Four minutes in May: Few title deciders have moved the Bundesliga more than matchday 34 on May 19, 2001. After a wild 5-3 win (having trailed 0-2 and 2-3) against SpVgg Unterhaching, Schalke believed they were German champions. Title rivals Bayern München were trailing 0-1 at Hamburg. Sergej Barbarez had given HSV the lead. But in the fourth minute of injury time, Patrik Andersson equalised for Bayern — and Schalke's four-minute championship was over.

0-2 in the "Derby of the Century": Dortmund, May 12, 2007. A unique constellation in the history of the Ruhr rivalry. The Knappen had the chance to become German champions in the stadium of arch-rivals Borussia Dortmund. The BVB players, who had only secured survival a week earlier in Wolfsburg (2-0), had other ideas. Dortmund won 2-0 — and denied Schalke the title on their own turf.

Schalke 04 won seven German championships through the 2019/20 season: 1957/58, 1941/42, 1939/40, 1938/39, 1936/37, 1934/35 and 1933/34. The Knappen also claimed five DFB-Pokal victories — in 2010/11, 2001/02, 2000/01, 1971/72 and 1937 — plus the 2011/12 Supercup.

UEFA Cup winners 1997: The greatest success in the post-war era came under coach Huub Stevens in 1996/97. The Knappen won the UEFA Cup in a penalty drama against Inter Milan (4-2 on penalties after 0-1 in extra time; first leg: 1-0). En route to the final, they eliminated CD Tenerife, FC Valencia and FC Brugge.

DFB-Pokal and runners-up: The greatest domestic achievements in the first decade after the Bundesliga's introduction were the DFB-Pokal triumph — 5-0 against 1. FC Kaiserslautern in the Hanover final — and the 1971/72 runners-up finish. Only a 1-5 defeat at Bayern München in a direct first-versus-second showdown on the final matchday at the new Olympiastadion cost the title.

The legendary 4-0 at BVB: On September 23, 2000, the Bundesliga eagerly anticipated the return of World Cup winner Andreas Möller from Schalke 04 to Dortmund. The playmaker, who had marched from victory to victory with BVB, was mercilessly booed by the Black and Yellow faithful. In the end, Möller stood as the triumphant figure: Schalke won 4-0 (2-0) with goals from Jörg Böhme, Ebbe Sand, Emile Mpenza and Tomáš Rosický.

4-4 after 0-4: Schalke 04's most spectacular comeback in Bundesliga history came at arch-rivals Borussia Dortmund. On November 25, 2017, the Knappen trailed 0-4 until the 61st minute but refused to surrender. After an emotional half-time team talk from coach Domenico Tedesco, they tore themselves apart for their colours and equalised to a scarcely believable 4-4.

Rudi Assauer — Macho with a heart: Rudolf "Rudi" Assauer made 307 Bundesliga appearances between 1964 and 1976 for Borussia Dortmund (not Schalke 04) and Werder Bremen. After unsuccessful attempts as a coach, he became manager at Werder Bremen and later at Schalke, where he transformed the club — building the Arena AufSchalke and engineering the 1997 UEFA Cup triumph. His later diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease became a deeply moving public story.

Bernd Tönnies — The big brother: Bernd Tönnies was elected new president of FC Schalke 04 at an extraordinary members' meeting on February 7, 1994. He was 41 years old, highly successful in business, but already health-compromised after a heart attack. His presidency would be defined by ambition, controversy and the shadow of his more famous brother Clemens.

Stan Libuda — Stan the Man: Reinhard "Stan" Libuda is a legend in the Ruhr — a kind of German Garrincha. And that at both Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund. The right winger's career began in Gelsenkirchen's youth ranks before he joined the first-team squad in 1961 and became a Schalke icon.

Libuda is one of the very few players to have moved between rival clubs Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund and still be revered by both sets of fans.

The nickname "Stan" was inspired by the legendary English winger Stanley Matthews. Libuda's dribbling ability remains the stuff of legend. When in the 1960s the preacher Werner Heukelbach toured the Ruhr with posters reading "Nobody gets past Jesus," someone scrawled underneath: "except Stan Libuda."

Co-opted, exploited, instrumentalised, bought — FC Schalke 04 in the currents of history. The working-class club's popularity was from the start both a great asset and a vulnerable one. The naïve Schalke found themselves caught in the machinery of politics, propaganda and officials' madness — both during the Nazi era and again in 2001.

Schalke 04 and the Nazis — a dangerous game: The most successful years of FC Schalke 04 coincided with the Third Reich. Between 1934 and 1942, the team reached at least the championship or cup final every year, building an enormous and enduring popularity across Germany. The team's success around Ernst Kuzorra and Fritz Szepan became entwined with the regime's propaganda machine.

Schalke and the Bundesliga scandal — a dirty game: In 1971, FC Schalke 04 were involved in the Bundesliga match-fixing scandal. For bribes, the team had deliberately lost 0-1 to Arminia Bielefeld on April 3, 1971. Numerous S04 professionals, including internationals Klaus Fichtel, Klaus Fischer, Reinhard Libuda and Rolf Rüßmann, were put on trial — a stain on the club's history.

Champions League on 9/11 — an unworthy game: September 11, 2001 — the day that changed the world. Terror attacks on the USA claimed more than 3,000 lives. Football was the last thing on anyone's mind. But UEFA pressed ahead with the scheduled Champions League matchday under the motto "the show must go on." Schalke 04 had to play at home against Panathinaikos Athens — a match that felt grotesque in its timing.

Schalke on the silver screen? A farcical game! Germany and its football films — not always Oscar-worthy entertainment. That also goes for "Fußball ist unser Leben" by Tomy Wigand from 2000. The film depicts the life and suffering of "Hans Pollack" (alias Uwe Ochsenknecht) and his fellow fans with and for FC Schalke 04. Rudi Assauer, Huub Stevens and cult figures all made cameo appearances.

FC Schalke 04 as "Champions of Hearts" — that's a guaranteed conversation-starter at any football pub. But here are fun facts of a special kind — knowledge for blowhards, braggadocios and connoisseurs.

The first "Double" winners: FC Schalke 04 became the first German club to win the "Double" of championship and cup in 1937 — the cup then known as the Tschammer-Pokal. The cup final against Fortuna Düsseldorf was actually played in January 1938 due to scheduling issues.

Twice against the Viennese: FC Schalke 04 achieved a unique feat. During the Third Reich, in the Second World War, the Gelsenkirchen club were the only team to win the championship twice against a Viennese side — in 1939 with an incredible 9-0 against Admira and in 1942 with a 2-0 against First Vienna.

"FC Meineid" (FC Perjury): Opposition fans, particularly in Dortmund, still mock the seven-time champions with this nickname due to the club's involvement in the Bundesliga match-fixing scandal.

Thon hands back the armband: Olaf Thon made 295 appearances for FC Schalke 04 in the 1. and 2. Bundesliga. In 2008, he was inducted into the Gelsenkirchen club's "Hall of Fame." Just as well — because only a year later, in 2009, honorary captain Thon, who felt his "experience and expertise" were insufficiently valued at Schalke, and the Ruhr club fell out. Temporarily…