But what few people know is that it does not fit Schalke’s greatest eras before the Bundesliga. The term “Schalker Kreisel” is familiar enough, but people often overlook that it referred to a delicate short-passing game – a kind of early Tiki-Taka, Ruhr style – and had very little to do with the kick-and-rush labourer stereotype. The players themselves said so openly. “We always said the ball has to do the running.
In the end our play worked almost mechanically – like a clock,” explained Ernst Kuzorra, who, together with his brother-in-law Fritz Szepan, made spectators marvel and experts swoon in the 1930s and early 1940s.
