Schalke 04 end their three-year Bundesliga exile on Sunday evening when they travel to the WWK Arena to face Augsburg in the season opener. For Augsburg, it is the start of a 16th consecutive Bundesliga campaign, and for both clubs it is a first real test of what their summers have changed.
The game has been put into sharper focus by what has happened off the pitch. Augsburg have lost as many as 16 players, generated serious funds from the sales of Dimitris Giannoulis, Keven Schlotterbeck and Cedric Zesiger, and still made Michael Gregoritsch’s return permanent after his loan spell last season. Gregoritsch finished as Augsburg’s leading scorer with six goals, and his return gives them a familiar reference point in a squad that has been reshaped around him. Rodrigo Ribeiro arrived at a cost of more than £4m and became the club’s biggest summer investment.
Augsburg’s summer was not only about arrivals and departures. Manuel Baum was brought back in December as an interim replacement for Sandro Wagner, then earned a two-year contract after the results turned quickly enough to stabilise the side. He had already managed Augsburg between 2016 and 2019, so this season begins with a coach who knows the club and a squad that has been heavily altered by the market.
There is also a cleaner, more immediate reason the match matters now: both teams have already handled their first cup fixtures. Augsburg opened their campaign with a 2-0 victory over Energie Cottbus in the first round of the DFB-Pokal, while Schalke swept aside Hallescher last weekend with Edin Dzeko scoring twice. Dzeko stayed at Schalke and is set to become the fourth-oldest player in Bundesliga history, which tells you how much experience they still carry into a team that finished as 2. Bundesliga champions with 70 points.
That promotion does not erase the problem waiting on the road. Schalke had the best defensive record across Germany’s top three divisions last season, but they have won just two of their last 45 away matches in the Bundesliga. That is the number Augsburg will understand best on Sunday evening. A champion side can control its own story at home, but away from home the same team can look fragile, and this opener arrives with that contradiction attached to it.
Augsburg are relatively injury-free ahead of the new season, which gives them a chance to find out quickly whether the rebuild has left them stronger or merely different. Schalke arrive with promotion momentum and Dzeko’s goals, but the away record hangs over them before the first ball is kicked. The answer to the opener is not whether Schalke are back in the Bundesliga. It is whether they can finally travel like a top-flight side again.
