It began with an unprecedented negative run: from matchday 17 of the 2019/20 season onward, Schalke did not win a single Bundesliga game. The sequence stretched beyond the end of that campaign into 2020/21. In the end it stood at 30 Bundesliga matches without a win — a new Bundesliga negative record that smashed Tasmania Berlin’s previous mark from 1965/66. On matchday 33 of the 2020/21 season, relegation was confirmed. After 30 unbroken years in the top flight, Schalke 04 were a second-division club.