Schalke 04: 10 reasons to support Schalke this Bundesliga season
By Josh Sippie
2. Built, Not Bought
When the San Antonio Spurs met the Miami Heat in the 2014 NBA Finals, the Spurs took a swipe at the Heat’s strategy of dropping huge sums of cash on all the top players and putting a team together that way. The Spurs ran a branding campaign stating that they were “built, not bought.” The Spurs didn’t go buy the best players in the league to win a championship, they built it over the years.
That’s the Schalke way too. Schalke is not a club like Bayern Munich who’s got massive reserves of cash to buy all the best players in the world and compete that way. Everything that Schalke wins and will win is going to be built on their Knappenschmiede youth academy and getting players like Ozan Kabak and Ahmed Kutucu before they become massive international sensations.
It’s more satisfying that way. To see a player raise from a 19-year-old prospect with a lot of potential to a bonafide champion of the world. All of the players you see Schalke adding now are the superstars of the immediate future, the kinds that will bring trophies back to Gelsenkirchen—the right way.
Lastly, No. 1.