In less than six months at work, the 48-year-old has dusted off Schalke’s worst most sensible flying crusade in 36 years and made them the true 4 most sensible contenders.
Intense and effective football. As for the results, well, Schalke is tied up in trouble with ferocious local rivals Borussia Dortmund midway through 2019/20, fifth.
bundesliga.com assesses why and how change …
Schalke had finished a moment in the Bundesliga in 2017/18, fought for much of the ensa such crusade.
Head coach Domenico Tedesco has lost his task after a 10-2 loss to Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League in the last 16 games, and only three games to play with interim coach Huub Stevens that Ruhr’s district club ended with the dreaded drop in bed.
It’s up to Wagner to wake Die Knappen from his dream.
The other eleventh Schalke coach of the recently finished decade, Wagner had spent time in Gelsenkirchen as a player, winning the 1997 UEFA Cup with his predecessor, Stevens.
He also played for the same Mainz team as Klopp, before starting his education with the Hoffenheim under-17s and under-19s and taking the reins of Dortmund’s reserves in the summer of 2011, with Klopp’s BVB having just won the Bundesliga title. The seniors won a national double the following season, while Wagner’s B team rose to 3rd place in Germany.
Klopp and Wagner left Dortmund in May and October 2015, respectively, former English Premier League giants Liverpool and last Huddersfield Town at the English Championships.
Klopp won the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League, while Wagner oversaw Huddersfield in the English Premier League fairy tale and his successful debut at The English Top Tier in 2017/18.
Although he left Huddersfield by mutual consent in January 2019 with the club at the back of the Premier League standings, about 8 protection issues, Wagner’s professional reputation had been advanced rather than tainted.
He had embraced Yorkshire’s attire culture, the city and the fans. And as his joy of living was born, his IQ and his vision of football had been forged in the mold of his most productive friend, Klopp.
For the Schalke, a club steeped in the traditions of the ancient mining communities of Gelsenkirchen, there is no one better to oversee the recovery project.
Schalke kept Borussia Monchengladbach in a blank draw in their first Bundesliga match with Wagner on the bench. They suffered a 3-0 defeat to Bayern Munich champion in their match at the time, but flirted with the top spot at the end of October.
Despite a streak of four consecutive victories, a demonstration behind the backs of current leader RB Leipzig, and a draw at Hoffenheim, the Royal Blues were defeated once back at Hinrunde.
Look: Schalke inflicted a first defeat of the season on Julian Nagelsmann’s RB Leipzig!
In seventeen games, Schalke has 12 more issues than at the same time last season (30 of the 51 imaginable). They scored nine more (29) and awarded 3 minus (21). Only the first two, Leipzig and Gladbach, have a senior defensive record.
In addition, Wagner’s incarnation averages 1.90 problems consistent with the game compared to a collective average of 1.6 12 months ago, and is already halfway to adapt to the 2018/19 season in general for blank sheets (four vs. seven).
In addition to a forged defense, the Schalke’s good fortune was based on intense, interhuman pressures, a feature of Wagner.
He trained his team to play and run even more. The fact that the Schalke is at the back of the board by the distance traveled underscores the effectiveness of Wagner’s press.
The former usMNT foreign forward has banned, for all purposes, the search for shadows. No team has won more demanding situations at Hinrunde (1904), while six counter-attack goals and nine more sensible league goals after regaining ownership testify to an organization of players determined to maximize energy efficiency. Someone calls the low-carbon manufacturing plans committee…
Right-back Jonjoe Kenny is an emblem of Wagner’s hard-painting school. Everton’s ultra-disciplined loan ended with 15 of the Royal Blues in this quarter, having been sacrificed only by a nominal striker in the final stages of loss to Hoffenheim and Bayer Leverkusen.
Kenny is a ball chaser dyed wool defensively, but no less than in the last third, where he provides amplitude and stretches to the opposition, allowing the Schalke ends to interfere and exploit the area in the canals. One goal, two assists and 668 open-play assists, adding up to 35 centres, placed him comfortably among the league’s 10 most sensitive strikers for the offensive outing.
Newcomers, defender Ozan Kabak and striker Benito Raman, have also excelled from the first-team’s central players following the Round 10 victory over Augsburg.
Kabak’s functionality has eased a number of backline injuries, and the 19-year-old posted an average of 70% in tackles won, nearly 90% in successful passes and scored 3 goals in the corners.
Raman, with power degrees and a custom speed replacement for Schalke’s abrupt transitions, has 4 goals and 3 assists to show in its last seven games. Only Amine Harit fared better.
This in itself is Wagner’s masterstroke.
Harit was chosen as the most productive young player in the Bundesliga at the end of his first season at Schalke in May 2018, but tragedy and indiscipline off the field carry his form (he amassed a purpose and two assists in 18 league games in 2018/19.), a spot in the 2019 African Cup of Nations national team and almost his royal blue jersey.
It took fatherhood and a pre-season meeting with Wagner to refocus the heart and mind of one of the German top tier’s most gifted young attackers.
“At that moment, I described to him how he saw things for him and he said how he saw things,” Wagner told Bild. “We must face each other in combination and meet at the end of the pre-season. In the end, the moment of verbal exchange was not necessary. It was all clear.”
Harit produced six goals and 4 assists to the team’s most sensible in the first half of 2019/20, winning the September Player of the Month award en route.
His speed and one-on-one skills were at the center of Schalke’s tactics through and around the opposition, and he presented the goods, deployed on the left side of the attack in 4-2-3-1, or as a moment-on-one striker in a modified 4-4-2 formation.
If master and pupil have had any further chin-wags, they were probably bookended with a warm pat on the back.
Watch: Amine Harit – reborn under David Wagner at Schalke
“Amine is one of many senior players aged 19 to 23 who can be the long term of this club,” Wagner told The Schalke after Harit put his pen on paper in a contract extension until the summer of 2024 at the end of last year.
“I am satisfied that he needs to be a part of this organization and continue his progression here. It has been inspired by the past six months and has demonstrated what you can achieve when you work hard and execute a plan.”
In many ways, Harit is the rebirth of the Schalke under the embodiment of Wagner. Former coach Tedesco was unable to maximize the Moroccan’s ability as much as he and his predecessors failed in the medium and long term to sculpt the team according to their respective philosophies.
It is still early in the Wagner era, however, Schalke seems to sing from the same hymn sheet. The Champions League anthem could soon be on your playlist.
Chris Mayer Lodge
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