Miron Muslić didn’t even have to wait for his first game in front of 62,000 fans to appreciate the scale of what he was taking on as Schalke’s new coach. That became clear when 3,000 fans showed up to watch the first training session of the summer.
“That’s what makes this club not only great, but what makes it special,” he says Ski Sports visiting the club’s magnificent stadium. “Shalke is still a giant. He was easy on the players in that first session, but the ride has only just begun. ‘Fasten your seat belts,’ he told them.”
Plymouth Argyle were frustrated when Muslic left them in the summer. He arrived last January with the club bottom of the Championship. They ranked in the top half on points during his time in charge, but it wasn’t quite enough. “We’re out of games.”
He was preparing for the season in League 1 when Schalke came. It was, he admits, an emotional decision. Schalke is in the second tier, but is the sixth largest club in the world by number of members with the third largest number of visitors in Germany.
“Every home game with 62,000 people here,” he says, looking out at the pitch. “I saw it as the most beautiful challenge in professional football. I saw the potential.” But the rational part of his brain realized that he wasn’t the first coach to think that.
“Put your emotions aside for a second and a half, take a closer look and then see how big this challenge is. Then you just see the trainer’s graveyard, burning like nothing.” Schalke changed their coach during each of the last five seasons.
“I understand that this club is in a very difficult situation, coming out of a very fragile season, I think the worst season in the history of Schalke, conceding over 120 goals in the last two years. You see all the obstacles. But I still see an opportunity.
“From day one, we tried to hide the past and focus on the potential. The club is full of ambition, but the first step was to stabilize the club. Everything was fragile. It’s easy to break something. It’s super hard to pick up the pieces and try to build it again.”
In the middle of his first season, Schalke is at the top of the table, and Muslić, whispers, is closer to promotion than dismissal. He has mastered his emotions. “Here, no emotion, you’re done anyway. And he withstood the pressure. “It’s omnipresent.
Muslić knows the enormous responsibility that comes with coaching Schalke
How did he do it? Muslić is as animated a conversational tactic as he is demonstrative when he talks about the importance of human connection. But it all starts with shopping. In Plymouth, his speeches went viral. Here, too, he inserted players early.
“I can use words rhetorically and I have several languages, which is an advantage for a coach in the locker room, but it’s never been about speeches. You can’t win matches with words alone. But it’s about connecting quickly, creating a new mindset.”
Much of what Muslić preaches goes against the grain of modern coaching thinking, but that makes him all the more fascinating. Marginal gains? “I understand that Pep Guardiola and Arne Slott are talking about it. I focus on big wins – 90 percent!”
Tactically, he often repeats the phrase “aggressive, intense and brave”, the mantra for what he wants his team to be. He once called Jurgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund an inspiration, but he has stopped saying that now. “You can’t mention that word here!”
But what sets him apart from some of the game’s most celebrated coaches is that when Muslic talks about his vision for the team, he imagines them without the ball when he says it. Šalke is at the top of the table in terms of points, but at the bottom of the table in terms of possession.
‘We don’t want possession’
“Rock bottom,” he says, laughing. “But we don’t have possession because we don’t have it.” i want possession. We define our game quite differently. They can play all night 65 meters from our goal. But as soon as they enter a certain zone, we are on them.”
For Muslić, this is brave football. “Because we defend in the opponent’s half. I want my team to be consistently proactive, not waiting, but chasing, forcing opponents into mistakes. We call them traps. That’s what our game is based on,” he explains.
Muslić gives instructions at the training ground in Schalke
“People ask me how to call it dominance when we never have the ball. We have the highest defensive line in the second Bundesliga. It’s brave, it’s aggressive. We don’t park the bus, but we have the best defensive structure in Germany.” He is right.
Schalke conceded just 10 goals in the first half of the season, the best defense in the top two divisions, even Bayern Munich conceded more. The bottom club are outscoring Schalke so that needs to improve but, yes, they have started with the biggest gains.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that even Bayern Munich, if you concede three goals in a game, would have problems. At this point, Muslic gets up from his chair, showing the aggression he is looking for. “Defend the box! Protect the red zone!”
Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Watch how Muslic spoke to his team after their huge win over Liverpool in the FA Cup
It’s easy to see how Muslic can inspire players to extraordinary feats such as Plymouth’s shock win over Liverpool in the FA Cup last season. But it’s not all motivation, there’s a method and detail to his training that explains his success.
“We train these principles every day, but we hide them in our passing drills, our little games. They are everywhere but nowhere,” he says. “Players have 55,000 solutions in their heads. They only need two or three. It may seem old, but keep it simple.”
“Slavery is also geopolitics”
When Muslić talks like this, with such passion for the game, it’s tempting to see him as another football obsession. But this would be neglecting his other interests and the fact that this is a man who was a Bosnian refugee as a child. He sees the bigger picture.
He still feels the weight of it. “First of all, I represent myself and now I represent Schalke. But I am aware of my responsibility to represent Bosnia. We are only a small country, so I am aware of the influence of the Bosnians who coach this club.”
Muslić talks with just as much enthusiasm when he discusses what he reads. It’s not a football book, but Alex Haley’s Roots isn’t exactly about escapism either. “It’s about slavery in America, but slavery is also geopolitics, I think. It’s a fantastic book.”
Football is like a vampire, you know. Like a mosquito.
“Football is a vampire”
He’s on the range at 7.30am every day – “it demands everything from me so I can demand everything back” – but other interests include a love of the outdoors. “I walk every day.” He is also a film buff. “Al Pacino and Roberto De Niro,” he says.
“If you don’t have other interests, you will go crazy, you will lose yourself. Especially in a club like Schalke, this club is too big not to find time to shut down. Most coaches now lose themselves under pressure. You have to take time for yourself.
“Energy is a big part of football, so you have to recharge, but it’s also an energy drainer. Football is like a vampire, you know. Like a mosquito. You have to get rid of it sometimes, recharge. The next day, you might catch me again, but I’ll always fight back.”
‘Pressure is a privilege’
He will need that resilience at Schalke. This is a club that played in the knockout stages of the Champions League in 2019, but managed to get knocked out in 2021 and again in 2023. In Gelsenkirchen, the next disappointment is often just around the corner.
But Muslić is ready. “It’s super important to have that energy because it’s tough out there,” again gesturing towards the massive Veltins Arena. “My assistant Eddie Lattimore, an Englishman from Peterborough, always tells me that dog eat dog.
He added: “They’ll eat you for breakfast if you don’t have that energy. You can’t survive here without it, but it’s a privilege to be the coach of this club and the pressure that comes with that is a privilege.” Muslić’s Šalke goes for a ride. Fasten your seat belts.