Schalke 04 have been relegated from the Bundesliga for the first time in 30 years following a 1-0 defeat away to fellow strugglers Arminia Bielefeld on Tuesday night.
The Royal Blues, who were Bundesliga runners-up in 2018, have only won two league games since January 2020, and their fate was sealed with just four games left to be played.
It was Fabian Klos’s powerful 50th-minute strike that saw off the Royal Blues, who were reduced to 10-men when Malick Thiaw was sent off for a second booking in the 71st minute.
Schalke 04 picked up just 13 points this season, fewer than any other team in Europe’s top five leagues after recording 21 losses.
Before now, Schalke had won three German Cups and reach the Champions League quarterfinals in 2008 and the semi-finals in 2011.
However, a series of poor managerial appointments in recent years, laced with expensive but unsuccessful transfer policy, saw the club from Gelsenkirchen in western Germany slip gradually in the league.
“We knew what was coming but when it happens and you realise it’s over, it’s brutal,” Gerald Asamoah, a former player now on the staff at Schalke told Sky.
“If you’re last in the table, have 13 points… If someone says they gave it everything… I don’t know what I would do with this person.”
