By Tom Lee · FC Schalke 04

From Division 1 to the depths of Division 5. Five seasons of misery, a managerial graveyard, and one final attempt to stop the rot.

A One-Way Ticket to Germany?

As I stepped off the plane in Germany, I couldn’t help but wonder what on earth I’d just got myself into.

I’d been away from Soccer Manager for some time, but from the moment I returned, there was one place I wanted to manage.

Top 100.

One of the most competitive game worlds on Soccer Manager. A world full of experienced managers, established clubs and very little room for error.

The problem? Getting into Top 100 wasn’t particularly easy.

I had been keeping my eyes open for an opportunity, but the jobs simply weren’t there. At least, not the jobs anybody actually wanted.

Then Schalke appeared.

A once-established Division 1 club, now sitting second bottom of Division 5, with just 25 points and ten games remaining.

Nobody seemed particularly interested in taking on this poisoned chalice.

But I was.

Not because I had some lifelong ambition to manage Schalke. Not because I was emotionally attached to the club.

I wanted into Top 100, and Schalke was my ticket.

I knew the situation was desperate, but I also knew I was capable of keeping them up.

There was just one rather significant catch.

Division 5 doesn’t actually have relegation. Finish 17th or above and you keep your job. Finish 18th, 19th or 20th and you’re automatically sacked.

Ten games to save my managerial career before it had even begun.

What could possibly go wrong?

The In-Flight Reading That Left Me Speechless

During the flight over to Germany, I’d decided to do a little research into my new employers.

I wanted to understand the club’s history, where things had gone wrong and what sort of situation I was walking into.

I wish I hadn’t bothered.

But before I got into the truly horrifying stuff, one name caught my attention.

Steve Adlington.

A man who had managed Schalke for an impressive 221 games.

221 games!

In a game world as competitive as Top 100, that’s no small achievement. Whatever happened during his time in charge, Adlington had provided something Schalke would soon find almost impossible to replicate.

Stability.

A manager who had stuck around, built a lengthy tenure and given the club some continuity.

And then, somewhere along the line, it all fell apart.

I couldn’t help but wonder what Adlington would make of the state of the club today.

A club he had managed for 221 matches was now sitting second bottom of Division 5, having suffered four consecutive relegations.

What followed wasn’t simply a decline.

It was a complete and utter collapse.

As I continued scrolling through the club’s history at 30,000 feet, the full scale of the disaster became clear.

Season 24 - Division 1: 20th. Bottom. Relegated.

Season 25 - Division 2: 20th. Bottom. Relegated.

Season 26 - Division 3: 20th. Bottom. Relegated.

Season 27 - Division 4: 19th. Second bottom. Relegated.

Four consecutive relegations.

Four seasons of absolute misery.

From the very top of Top 100 to the very bottom in just four seasons.

And it wasn’t as though Schalke had been narrowly missing out on survival. They were being absolutely battered from one division to the next.

By Season 28, the club had found itself in Division 5, once again occupying 19th place.

I sat there looking at the history, genuinely wondering:

What the hell has happened to this football club?

And more importantly…

Who on earth is to blame?

The Managerial Graveyard

Naturally, my attention turned towards the managers who had overseen this extraordinary collapse.

And that’s where things became even more ridiculous.

Steve Coppell.

Jamie Aldridge.

Jay Jones.

Three names that will probably send shivers down the spines of Schalke supporters for years to come.

And then there was Steve Coppell.

The caretaker manager.

Not once. But twice.

Now, I’m no expert on football club administration, but surely the whole point of a caretaker manager is to provide a little stability while the club figures out its next move?

Apparently, Schalke decided one spell wasn’t enough.

They brought him back for a second go.

You’d think after the first attempt somebody might have decided enough was enough.

Apparently not.

Then there was Jamie Aldridge and Jay Jones, both of whom had also managed the club twice, with equally disappointing records!

Three managers. Six appointments between them.

It was almost as though Schalke had installed a revolving door in the manager’s office.

Between 2024 and May 2026, when Coppell finally departed for what I sincerely hope was the last time, the club had become a managerial graveyard.

But perhaps I’m being a little harsh.

After all, both Jamie Aldridge and Jay Jones have since moved on to greener pastures, managing clubs considerably higher up the Top 100 pyramid.

So clearly, there’s managerial ability there. Perhaps their time at Schalke was simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And credit where it’s due, they’ve managed to escape the wreckage and rebuild their reputations elsewhere.

Which begs another question…

Was it really the managers who were the problem? Or was Schalke the problem all along?

As for Steve Coppell?

Well, he appears to have disappeared altogether.

And after two spells in charge, I suspect there won’t be too many Schalke supporters launching a search party anytime soon.

Sorry, Steve. 😂

But the managerial merry-go-round didn’t end there.

Next through the door came Hussain Saif.

Surely somebody could finally stop the slide?

Unfortunately, no.

Saif oversaw yet another relegation, taking Schalke into Division 5 after collecting just 38 points from 34 matches.

By this point I was beginning to wonder whether the problem was even managerial.

Could this football club actually be cursed?

Four consecutive relegations, repeated managerial changes and a seemingly endless cycle of failure.

And now I’d agreed to become the latest man to sit in the hot seat.

Wonderful.

Walking Into the Wreckage

Upon arriving at Schalke, the first thing I wanted to do was assess the playing squad.

And it didn’t take particularly long to understand why the club had been struggling.

45 players.

An average rating of just 79.

A squad worth approximately £78 million.

It was an absolute mess.

What made the situation particularly frustrating was that Schalke actually had some decent footballers.

We had an 88-rated goalkeeper in Rossi. Bernardo, García and Davies were all rated 87. Barinov and Rodríguez provided experience in midfield, while Werner and the promising young striker Nicolò Tresoldi offered quality further forward.

But surrounding these players was an enormous collection of youngsters, fringe players and footballers who simply weren’t ready to compete at this level.

There was no real balance.

No obvious direction.

And certainly no evidence of a coherent long-term recruitment strategy.

It felt like several different managers had each started their own rebuild, departed halfway through it, and left the next unfortunate soul to deal with the consequences.

I wasn’t interested in becoming another name on that list.

Something had to change. And quickly.

The Great Schalke Rebuild

With only ten games to secure my future, there was no time for sentiment.

I needed players who could improve the starting XI immediately.

But I also had one eye on the future.

My philosophy was relatively straightforward: identify footballers aged between 23 and 25 who I believed were operating below their true ability and had the potential for future rating increases.

Not simply buying the highest-rated players available.

I wanted value.

I wanted players whose real-life development suggested they could become significantly better assets over the coming seasons.

And so the rebuilding began.

Victor Guzmán arrived from Monterrey, rated 85 at just 24 years old.

Alassane Ndiaye, 84-rated and 24, strengthened the defence.

Rodrigo Villagra, rated 86 at 25, arrived to reinforce the midfield.

Hannibal Mejbri, Álvaro Rego, Dennis Denisov, Joe Gelhardt and several others followed.

But two deals in particular represented a significant gamble.

Luis Henrique and Rodrigo Cardoso.

Henrique, a 24-year-old winger rated 89, arrived from Málaga in a deal costing £20 million plus Elias Baum and Sol Gordon.

It was a huge price to pay, particularly considering Baum’s potential.

But I needed somebody who could make an immediate difference.

Then came the Nicolò Tresoldi deal.

Tresoldi was a promising young striker, rated 87, and exactly the sort of player I would ordinarily have wanted to build around.

But an opportunity presented itself that I simply couldn’t ignore.

In exchange for Tresoldi, we secured not one, but TWO exciting young players.

Rodrigo Cardoso - 88 rated, 24 years old.

Chemsdine Talbi - 86 rated, 21 years old.

An immediate upgrade in the striking department, alongside the arrival of a talented young winger already making a name for himself at Sunderland in real life.

One promising youngster out. Two talented young players in.

This was precisely the sort of business I wanted Schalke to conduct.

Strengthening the starting XI while simultaneously investing in players who could improve significantly over the coming seasons.

Of course, losing Tresoldi and Baum wasn’t ideal.

Both were talented youngsters with bright futures.

But this wasn’t an ordinary situation.

There was absolutely no point planning for Season 29 if I wasn’t going to be employed by Schalke when it arrived.

Alongside the first-team additions, we also began investing in youth.

Youngsters such as Ian James, Breno Moraes, Olutayo Subuloye, Dante Waite and several other prospects were brought into the setup.

The idea was to build two things simultaneously.

A senior squad capable of keeping me employed.

And a younger generation that could eventually take Schalke forward.

For the first time in years, perhaps this football club was beginning to develop some direction.

Three Games That Changed Everything

Of course, transfers and rebuilding projects mean absolutely nothing if you can’t produce results.

And with Schalke sitting 19th, the pressure was immediate.

My first three matches would tell me an awful lot about whether this rescue mission was realistic.

Fenerbahçe 0-2 Schalke

The first match was enormous.

An away trip to a direct relegation rival, and a game we simply couldn’t afford to lose.

We won 2-0.

Three points, a clean sheet and the perfect start.

It wasn’t just the result that mattered. It was the belief that came with it.

Perhaps Schalke weren’t quite as hopeless as their recent history suggested.

Schalke 3-1 Fiorentina

Next came Fiorentina.

Another side fighting around the bottom of the table, but a team with considerably more quality than their league position suggested.

This was going to be a proper test.

We won 3-1.

Six points from six.

Suddenly, the impossible-looking task of keeping my job was starting to look very achievable.

But then came the biggest challenge yet.

AZ Alkmaar 2-2 Schalke

Away to second-placed AZ Alkmaar.

A team battling at the opposite end of the table, with ambitions of promotion rather than survival.

On paper, this was a fixture where many would have expected Schalke to leave empty-handed.

Instead, we came away with a magnificent 2-2 draw.

Seven points from our opening three games.

And for the first time since taking charge, I looked at the league table and saw something that had seemed a long way away when I boarded that plane.

17th place.

Safety.

Well, temporary safety at least.

The Curse Isn’t Broken Yet

After 31 games, Schalke sit 17th with 32 points.

FC Twente are directly below us in 18th, also on 32 points.

Fiorentina and Spartak Moscow sit just three points ahead on 35.

Fenerbahçe are further behind on 26, while Stuttgart have endured an almost unbelievable campaign, collecting just two points from 31 matches.

But there are still seven games remaining.

And make no mistake, this is far from over.

One bad result could send us straight back into the bottom three.

One poor run could see me joining Coppell, Aldridge, Jones and Saif in Schalke’s increasingly lengthy collection of former managers.

I didn’t come all this way to become another statistic.

What Happens Next?

Regardless of whether we survive, one thing has become abundantly clear to me.

Schalke cannot continue operating the way they have over the previous five seasons.

The endless managerial changes, the unbalanced squads, the constant rebuilding and the lack of stability have taken an enormous toll.

My ambition isn’t to promise supporters an immediate return to Division 1.

That would be ridiculous.

We’ve got a long way to go before conversations like that become realistic.

Instead, I want to establish something this football club hasn’t enjoyed for a very long time.

Stability.

I want to continue scouting promising young players, developing our youth setup and identifying undervalued footballers in that 23-25 age bracket who I believe have significant room for improvement.

I want to build a squad that becomes stronger season after season rather than starting from scratch every time a manager leaves.

And above all else, I want to give Schalke an identity again.

But first, there is the small matter of surviving the next seven matches.

When I boarded that plane, I knew I was taking a gamble.

I wanted Top 100, and Schalke represented my only opportunity to get through the door.

I knew the risks.

I knew the history.

And after reading about the club’s extraordinary decline, I knew exactly how much work lay ahead.

But I backed myself then, and I back myself now.

Seven points from three matches have given us a fighting chance.

Whether that’s the beginning of a remarkable revival or simply another false dawn remains to be seen.

Four consecutive relegations. Five seasons of decline. A revolving door of managers.

Has the curse of Schalke finally met its match?

Or am I about to discover why nobody else wanted the job?

Seven games to find out.

To be continued…