At the beginning, Schalke 04 broke through from the group stage and drew to Porto, everyone was unanimously optimistic, the phoenix with hair is not as good as a chicken, the story of Porto is a matter of those years, after a large amount of blood loss, the strength must not be good in the eyes of everyone, the result of the first round of knockout surprised everyone, it is not easy to deal with, and finally Schalke 04 was promoted, everyone understands, Schalke 04 won in enough luck, the strength is really not good, in the face of Barcelona naturally makes the German media lack of morale.

For Schalke 04, the success of advancing to the quarterfinals of the Champions League is a victory in itself, in the face of the outside is not optimistic, everyone does not care at all, and now the performance in the Champions League is to kill one enough, kill two to earn a pair, the pressure up and down is far from being as pessimistic as the outside media imagined.

On the contrary, they also won two consecutive wins in the league, in the 25th round Schalke 04 away to challenge Hertha Berlin, Hertha Berlin has been a mid-level team after promotion, and this season is still stable in the mid-stream, before the game, the German media was generally optimistic about Schalke 04, and the fact is that Schalke 04 won 2:1 away from home Hertha Berlin, with 44 points.

After this theory, the same 44 points are Leverkusen, Werder Brumen, Schalke 04 three teams, the second place Hamburg only accumulated 46 points, a wave of three consecutive wins, Schalke 04 has narrowed the distance with the previous teams, Slomka's position is not the result can be determined, the oolong incident is not uninduced, the real reason is that Schalke 04 club management hopes to change a more capable coach, this idea was born at the beginning of the second half of the season, in fact, Slomka has proven his ability last year, but the top management, there will always be dissatisfaction, they think that last season should win the championship。

Now three consecutive defeats are followed by three consecutive wins, and the Champions League has also entered the quarterfinals, and the club's top management is embarrassed to say about the dismissal.

These are the secrets of the club's top management, the players don't know at all, Zhang Yuan doesn't know, he thinks that Slomka's position should be relatively stable, but he doesn't know that the club just wants to find a suitable opportunity.

On March 29, the 26th round of the league, away against Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe was only promoted to the first division last season, the new army on the horse, everyone was surprised, and now it has accumulated 37 points, ranking ninth, only 7 points away from Schalke.

It is very common to play well in the first season of the Bundesliga promotion horse, on the one hand, the promoted horse is promoted, and the teams are not familiar with their style of play, and it is easy to be cut by the opponent's three-board axe; on the other hand, the Bundesliga teams are not far behind each other except for Bayern Munich and several strong teams;

Schalke 04 suffered a loss, Schalke 04 came to Zhang Yuan, there are more offensive options, and the style of play is also rich, but the problem of weak strikers always exists, Kuranyi and Asamoah are not high-yield goalscorers, Kuranyi has only scored 9 goals so far, and he is already the top scorer in the team, and everyone else has not scored much as him, Schalke 04's biggest reliance from the Bundesliga will be defense, but their defense is not good this season.

In the face of the promoted horses, Schalke 04 still has the same old problems, the striker is weak, and there are opportunities, but no one can grasp it, and in the end they can only play with the home team in the away game.

The 0:0 draw with the promoted horses was something that the club's top brass and fans were unwilling to accept, and the away fans shouted for Slomka to leave without suspense, and the higher-ups dismissed Slomka because of a draw, which was obviously not enough reason.

Of course, Slomka knows his situation, he is now eagerly looking forward to Zhang Yuan's return as soon as possible, but Zhang Yuan can't return now, he hasn't even done recovery training, Zhang Yuan is just removing the plaster cast now, or staying at home all day to recuperate, and can walk on the ground, but for the sake of insurance, he doesn't dare to move.

Raiola called him specifically and said that he must be fully recovered before he can play, and he must not force himself to play. Slomka also called Zhang Yuan and asked about Zhang Yuan's injury, and when he heard Zhang Yuan say that he still needed to recuperate, he seemed a little disappointed, but Zhang Yuan couldn't hear his disappointment, and thought that Slomka cared about him very much, of course, Slomka was actually very concerned about Zhang Yuan, but he also hoped that Zhang Yuan could return to the team as soon as possible.

After the match against Karlsruhe, Schalke 04 hosted Champions League quarter-up opponents Barcelona on April 1.

Although the current Barcelona has declined compared to previous years, their strength is not doubtful at all, what really affects them is the contradiction in the dressing room, this season they have fallen behind Real Madrid in the league 8 points, basically belong to the championship hopeless, the Copa del Rey was eliminated by Valencia, the only honor left to fight for is the Champions League, regardless of the contradictions within the team, Rijkaard very much wants to win this crown.

However, at the home of Schalke 04, the unstressed Schalke 04 players played at a very high level, although facing the legendary Dream II Dynasty, but the players did not worry, Slomka's solid defense, long pass counterattack style of play created a lot of trouble for Barcelona, although the final home team was still 0:1 defeat, but after the game, the German media still unanimously praised Schalke 04's performance, thinking that Schalke 04's fighting spirit is worth learning from other teams, and the other teams here insinuate that Werder Bremen and Stuttgart returned home early。

With a little regret, Slomka told reporters after the game that the players should not have missed so many opportunities and played too kindly, in fact, as he said in this game, Schalke 04 had a lot of chances on goal, but they all missed one by one.

Slomka also implicitly criticized goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, Henry's shot that was not a big threat was actually missing, the ball was more like a shot than a pass, and the result was that Barcelona's youngster Bojan picked up the empty goal and scored.

Anyway, losing is always losing, although the players are a little regretful but did not hit the confidence, after all, it is a one-goal loss to Barcelona is not a loss to Karlsruhe, on the contrary, the first leg played like this gave everyone a little confidence, "Buffalo" Asamoah said that the next round still has to play, Schalke 04 still has a chance to advance.

Losing this game, the club has not fired Slomka, mainly on the one hand, the media are praised, public opinion is not favorable to the dismissal of Slomka, after all, it is a small number of fans who ask Slomka to step down, on the other hand, the club also hopes that Slommka can lead Schalke 04 to turn the tables away from home, although the chance is relatively small but after all.

On April 5th, the 27th round of the league, Schalke 04 hosted Rostock, Rostock now has 24 points, belongs to a member of the relegation army, and now the game is going to this stage The relegation work should be action, the last Nuremberg is only 4 points away from them, and Rostock is now in the stage of grabbing points.

Rostock were also promoted last season, but they were a former East German team with a weak foundation, so it was difficult to mix in the Bundesliga and failed to play as a surprise as Karlsruhe.

In this game, Rostock defended very tightly, using the tricks of Schalke 04 against Barcelona, Schalke 04 because of the midweek game consumed a lot of energy, the state was not particularly good, in the 85th minute relied on Kobiasvili's goal to solve Rostock, difficult to score 3 points.

After this game, Schalke 04 came to second place in the standings, the last round of the draw with Karlsruhe benefited from Leverkusen, Werder Bremen's drop, Schalke 04 also advanced one place, which is one of the reasons why the management has not been able to dismiss Slomka, this round of Hamburg away Stuttgart lost 0:1, dropped, so Schalke 04 surpassed Hamburg to the second place in the league.

This is good news, and the other good news is that Zhang Yuan has returned to the team and can finally participate in training.

Zhang Yuan's return undoubtedly made Slomka breathe a sigh of relief, and Schalke 04 will usher in two away games, both of which are crucial games, on April 9 away to Barcelona on April 9, which is a matter of whether they can advance in the Champions League again, and on April 12 away to Werder Bremen, which is a direct battle between two teams competing for a Champions League place, worth 6 points.

In fact, Zhang Yuan only returned to the team on April 7, and he also carried out recovery training in the team training, and did not play for more than a month.

However, what was surprising was that Slomka privately asked Zhang Yuan if he could play, and Zhang Yuan was stunned and quickly replied that he had no problem and could play, so Zhang Yuan was still selected into the away 18-man squad.

Zhang Yuan was not mentally prepared, but he was not unprepared, at least the video learning he had studied during this time could come in handy.

Barcelona has his favorite star Ronaldinho, many of the tricks he learned from Ronaldinho's video, if he can play this time, he plans to find Ronaldinho after the game to exchange jerseys, of course, if he can, he also wants Henry's jersey, but it should be very difficult, and there are many players who want to exchange jerseys with the top superstars of the opposing team in Schalke 04.

After more than a month of injury, Zhang Yuan finally wants to return to the football field he is familiar with, this time is too long for Zhang Yuan, and he is full of expectations. (To be continued.) )