There was contact between FC Schalke 04 and Friedhelm Funkel when the Royal Blues were looking for a coach. Twinkle confirmed that.
Former Bundesliga coach Friedhelm Funkel has confirmed talks about a commitment at Schalke 04. “There was once contact to FC Schalke through a middleman. That was a few weeks ago. That was after Manuel Baum was on leave,” he said in the Sport1 one-two.
Funkel canceled the royal blue. Instead, after the Baum-Aus club legend Huub Stevens took over on an interim basis, before Christian Gross and now Dimitrios Grammozis followed.
Funkel: I’m ready to help at short notice
Funkel had last worked at Fortuna Düsseldorf. After almost four years with the Rhinelanders, they parted ways at the beginning of last year. Although the 67-year-old emphasized at the time that this would be his last stop in professional football, he now “didn’t want to rule out the possibility of helping at short notice at some point if there is interest”.
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Meanwhile, he sees Grammozis facing a mammoth task at the bottom of the table: “I think he has done himself a disservice. He has now ten or eleven games – he has played two – he may lose eight of them. Then you leave with this heavy mortgage as Schalke in the 2nd Bundesliga. “
In the second league, S04 is then automatically “promotion favorite”, but the direct return to the Bundesliga is by no means a sure-fire success: “It will be difficult.”
Nine game days before the end of the season, the Royal Blues (currently ten points) are already eleven points behind the relegation place. There is after the win against Freiburg Mainz 05 with 21 points. Two difficult tasks await in Borussia Mönchengladbach and Bayer Leverkusen in the next two weeks.
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