Huub Stevens: We still have to make amends

Schalke’s coach was quick to point out that his team still had one important match ahead of them. “We haven’t had a good season and want to make amends for our fans,” explained the 65-year-old. “We managed to paper over the cracks with the derby win, but despite that, our home form hasn’t been good enough. We still have to make amends for that.”

Stevens also played down the fact that Saturday’s game will be his last in the dugout. “It’s not important,” said the head coach, who will return to his role on the supervisory board after successfully keeping the club up. The past few months have been extremely intense for Stevens, who also feels that this role has been his most difficult in his long coaching career. It’s no surprise that he’s “happy it’s coming to an end.”

A few doubts and absentees

It will also be Sascha Riether’s final game at the club. Stevens is hoping that 36-year-old will be able to feature one more time before he retires. “Sascha still has a knock, but we will try to get him fit for the game,” explained the coach.

Apart from Riether, there are also a number of other doubts for the game. “Ralf Fährmann has missed some parts of training, so we don’t know if he’ll make the squad. Matija Nastasic has a muscle problem and has also only partially trained. There is also a question mark regarding Salif Sané,” explained Stevens. Jeffrey Bruma, Omar Mascarell, Alessandro Schöpf, Steven Skrzybski and Mark Uth will all definitely miss the game. Depsite the difficult personnel situation, Stevens said with a smile: “We’ll still have eleven players on the pitch.”