Schalke 04
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7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Schalke 04 trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
FC Schalke 04 is one of German football's great institutions: a club from the industrial Ruhr that ruled the national game before the war, built one of the country's biggest followings, and has given its fans as much agony as glory ever since. This quiz covers the whole story. There are questions on the club's origins and nicknames, the passing style that won titles in the 1930s, the European trophy of the 1990s and the near misses that followed. You will meet the goalkeepers, strikers and academy graduates who moved on to bigger stages, the coaches who came and went, the grounds the team has called home, and the rivalry that divides the region. It is written for Bundesliga fans, pub-quiz players and anyone who follows German football from afar. The opening questions are friendly, the later ones dig into club history, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pope became an honorary member of Schalke 04 after celebrating Mass at the club's stadium?
John Paul II
John Paul II drew a crowd of 85,000 to the ground, far from the only star to fill it: Michael Jackson and the Rolling Stones played there too.
Q 02Schalke 04's nickname Die Knappen comes from an old German word for which workers who filled its early teams?
Coal miners
Coal miners supplied so many early players and fans that the name stuck, and the club's modern stadium stands above two old pit shafts 800 metres down.
Q 03In which German war film do the men hear by radio that Schalke 04 have lost and will miss the final?
Das Boot
Das Boot is set in 1941, when the real Schalke side did reach the German championship final, one of six in a row the team played.
Q 04Which goalkeeper rose through Schalke 04's youth teams, captained the club and left for Bayern Munich in 2011?
Manuel Neuer
Manuel Neuer played in every age group at his hometown club and signed off by lifting the German Cup after a 5–0 final win over Duisburg.
Q 05What does the 04 stand for in the name of FC Schalke 04, seven-time champions of Germany?
Its founding year
Its founding year is 1904: the club began that May under another name and only became FC Schalke 04 two decades later, in 1924.
Q 06Which Russian energy giant did Schalke 04 drop as shirt sponsor in 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine?
Gazprom
Gazprom had backed the club since 2006 in a deal first valued at up to €125 million; Schalke cancelled it four days after the invasion began.
Q 07Which long-serving Real Madrid captain joined Schalke 04 in 2010 and won the German Cup in his first season?
Raúl
Raúl arrived after 323 goals for Real Madrid and picked Schalke because the club had qualified for that season's Champions League.
Q 08Schalke 04 fans sing a stand-up chant to the tune of which Pet Shop Boys hit, first recorded by Village People?
Go West
Go West turned into a terrace favourite across Europe after the 1993 cover, and the Schalke version became one of the most widely copied.
Q 09Schalke 04 won the 1997 UEFA Cup final on penalties against which Italian club at the San Siro?
Inter Milan
Inter Milan lost the shoot-out 4–1 in the last UEFA Cup final ever played over two legs; later finals were single matches on neutral ground.
Q 10What do Germans call the fierce Ruhr rivalry between Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund, clubs about 30 km apart?
Revierderby
Revierderby history began with a 4–2 Schalke win in 1925, and Dortmund needed until 1943 to beat their neighbours for the first time.
Q 11Which stadium with a retractable roof and a slide-out pitch has been Schalke 04's home ground since 2001?
Veltins-Arena
Veltins-Arena can slide its whole pitch outdoors within four hours, so the grass grows in daylight and concerts never damage the turf.
Q 12Which Dutch coach led Schalke 04 to the 1997 UEFA Cup and was voted the club's manager of the century?
Huub Stevens
Huub Stevens built the side on rigid defensive discipline, and his motto about keeping a clean sheet became one of German football's best-known sayings.
Q 13Which Dutch striker joined Schalke 04 in 2010 and was the Bundesliga's leading scorer with 29 goals in 2011–12?
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar
Q 21Schalke 04 beat Fortuna Düsseldorf in the 1937 cup final to become the first German club to do what?
Win the double
To win the double, Schalke added the cup to that summer's national title, although the 1937 final was not actually played until January 1938.
Q 22Schalke 04 won a seventh German championship in 1958 by beating which northern club 3–0 in the final?
Hamburger SV
Hamburger SV lost to a side that won all four finals-round games, and a local church soon gained a stained-glass saint in Schalke colours with a football.
Q 23Which Schalke 04 striker, famous for bicycle kicks, scored the overhead goal voted Germany's Goal of the Century?
Klaus Fischer
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar arrived from AC Milan and went on to become the club's second-highest scorer of the Bundesliga era.
Q 14Which playmaker, later a World Cup winner and Arsenal star, began his senior career at hometown club Schalke 04?
Mesut Özil
Mesut Özil left at 19 after a contract row in which the coach declared he would never play for the club again; Werder Bremen signed him in January 2008.
Q 15In 2016 Schalke 04 bought the esports team Elements to enter Europe's leading competition in which video game?
League of Legends
League of Legends made Schalke one of the first football clubs with a professional gaming side, following Turkey's Beşiktaş into the scene.
Q 16Which American midfielder left FC Dallas's youth system for Schalke 04 and later joined Juventus in 2020?
Weston McKennie
Weston McKennie's departure for Germany was the main reason FC Dallas went on to create a reserve team, North Texas SC.
Q 17Which winger, son of a Senegal international, left Schalke 04 for England in 2016 and later joined Bayern Munich?
Leroy Sané
Leroy Sané is also the son of an Olympic medal-winning rhythmic gymnast, and was named after Claude Le Roy, a coach his father played under.
Q 18Which sport drew a then-world-record crowd of 77,803 to Schalke 04's home stadium for a 2010 World Championship opener?
Ice hockey
Ice hockey filled the football ground as hosts Germany beat the USA 2–1 in overtime, with the attendance confirmed by Guinness World Records.
Q 19Which club, coached by José Mourinho, won the 2004 Champions League final played at Schalke 04's stadium?
Porto
Porto beat Monaco 3–0 in the then-new stadium, and Mourinho left for Chelsea a week after lifting the trophy.
Q 20In early 2023 Schalke 04 set a Bundesliga record by playing four consecutive matches that finished with which score?
0–0
0–0 four times running came straight after a 6–1 defeat; the tightened defence then won two matches to lift the club off the bottom.
Klaus Fischer struck it against Switzerland in 1977, and his 182 Bundesliga goals remain the most any player has scored for Schalke in that league.
Q 24The Schalker Kreisel, the short-passing style that made Schalke 04 champions in the 1930s, is named after which toy?
Spinning top
Spinning top captured how the ball whirled from man to man in short, flat passes while team-mates kept running into space.
Q 25Schalke, the district that gives FC Schalke 04 its name, is part of which city in Germany's Ruhr region?
Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen got its thanks in 1928, when the club added the city's name to its own in return for local support for a new stadium.
Q 26After a stoppage-time Bayern Munich goal cost Schalke 04 the 2001 title, German media named the team Champion of what?
Hearts
Hearts was the consolation: fans were already celebrating a first title since 1958 when an indirect free kick deep in added time rescued Bayern.
Q 27Which Schalke 04 goalkeeper scored a last-minute equaliser against Borussia Dortmund in December 1997?
Jens Lehmann
Jens Lehmann had saved a penalty in that spring's UEFA Cup final shoot-out, and within two years he was keeping goal for Dortmund instead.
Q 28Which Croatian midfielder left Schalke 04 for Sevilla in 2011 and later won the Champions League with Barcelona?
Ivan Rakitić
Ivan Rakitić had cost €5 million from Basel in 2007, and he went on to score the opening goal of the 2015 Champions League final.
Q 29Which Cameroon defender left Schalke 04 on a free transfer in 2016 and won the Champions League with Liverpool?
Joël Matip
Joël Matip had been with the club since 2000 and marked his Bundesliga debut by scoring the equaliser against Bayern Munich.
Q 30Schalke 04's squad, only twelfth in the Bundesliga that season, earned which nickname by winning the 1997 UEFA Cup?
Euro Fighters
Euro Fighters ended a 25-year wait for a trophy, the club's first honour since the German Cup of 1972.