Robin Gosens moves to Schalke 04: dream wedding with a falcon

Robin Gosens entered Gelsenkirchen ground accompanied by his wife, two children and the family dog ​​named Malou, and FC Schalke 04 saw no reason to keep the incident quiet. “The falcon has landed,” the club announced to its regular followers at 11:40 a.m. on Thursday. The secret service jargon made it clear that this was by no means a routine operation. The falcon’s arrival in Gelsenkirchen was also announced in a kind of live ticker.

Before Robin Gosens, 32, will sign a contract with Schalke 04, he must first pass a careful medical examination. The club takes this very seriously; checks for access usually take a day and a half. But the conditions are right: in the previous two seasons, Gosens played 58 Serie A games for Fiorentina and scored an impressive eight goals. Serious health problems are not noted in the minutes.

Although the upcoming transfer takes place in the middle of professional football life, and certain sums of money will flow from Gelsenkirchen to Florence and into the player’s account, the liaison between Schalke and Gosens is still a real love story. As early as 2019, he was on the verge of leaving Italy and moving to the Ruhr area, near his home in the Lower Rhine. At that time, he had already made a certain name for himself at Atalanta Bergamo, and Schalke was not yet an elevator club that shuttles between the first and second divisions, as it is today. Gosens was ready to move to his favorite club, Schalke offered the Bergamo team six or seven million euros for a transfer fee – which was only half of what Atalanta wanted. So Gosens stayed in Lombardy, played the first of 24 international matches with the national team a year later and got to know the Champions League with Bergamo.

The risk is manageable – the majority of the payments to the Italians are linked to remaining in the class

The career is now on the home stretch, and the union between the professional, who was 32 years old last week, and the Bundesliga newcomer is not only a marriage of the heart but also a marriage of convenience. Schalke has made an arrangement with Fiorentina that limits the financial risks of the trade; the majority of the payments to the Italians are linked to staying in the league. Despite useful performances during the previous season, Gosens no longer found a place in the Florentines’ plans, and a change is inevitable. He could earn more money elsewhere, but he would rather fulfill his childhood dream.

Nevertheless, this romance should not be confused with a folklore transfer. Schalke needs reinforcements on the left side, so far only 21-year-old Vitalie Becker, a student at the club’s own youth academy, is available. Last summer the club wanted to loan him out to Austria or deport him; he was already looking for accommodation in Ried. Until coach Miron Muslic intervened and made Becker a regular player. Then an injury stopped him, and in the winter the loan player Moussa Ndiaye, 24, came from RSC Anderlecht, who turned out to be the main prize on the speculative transfer market, but whose full takeover is apparently too expensive. It is no insult to Gosens if one states that the left winger would have offered Ndiaye more prospects in terms of sport and finances.

To take up an old Schalke joke: The problem is the euro. Especially if you don’t have many of them. Due to a lack of budget, Schalke is forced to work with clauses, tricks and trust in the hidden reserves of previously higher-rated players to build a Bundesliga-ready team. The Japanese national player Satoshi Tanaka, 23, is coming for just one million euros thanks to a special agreement, the Freiburg striker Junior Adamu, 25, who was once quite expensive, because his market value has constantly fallen. Schalke has been haggling with Eintracht Frankfurt for weeks over the release of the Frenchman Dina Ebimbe, 25. It’s about a price difference of less than one million euros – an amount of money that Max Eberl carries in his shirt breast pocket at FC Bayern for free, spontaneous use. No criticism of Eberl – but the reality of the conditions in the first league.

It has not yet been clarified whether, after Gosens, another former Fiorentine player, the well-known center forward Edin Dzeko from the second half of the promotion season, will end up back in Gelsenkirchen. Dzeko wouldn’t have to miss out on great football, even in a season in which there is a relegation battle. The contracts have not yet been signed, but the day on which Real Madrid will visit Gelsenkirchen has already been scheduled. The Spanish club would do the honors on August 16 if both sides agree on terms. Apparently the guest appearance is an express wish of coach José Mourinho. Not out of old love for Schalke 04, but because he would like to return to the place where he won the Champions League with FC Porto in 2004.