"I didn't even watch the free-kick because I was so scared": When FC Bayern Munich sent Schalke 04 plummeting into the depths of despair.

On 19 May 2001, Schalke 04 were just 4 minutes and 38 seconds away from their first Bundesliga title. When the match against SpVgg Unterhaching (5–3) ended at 5:16 pm, the club's greatest success appeared secure. Thousands of the 65,000 spectators in the sold-out Parkstadion stormed the pitch in jubilation, flares shot into the sky, Rudi Assauer raised his fist, and the players rolled around on the turf.

Among them is 22-year-old Asamoah. "Suddenly everyone was saying: 'We're champions'," he recalls. Yet, even as the first players start giving title interviews, manager Huub Stevens orders "everyone into the dressing room. "I was among the last to show up, beer in hand," Asamoah recalls. "I walked in and thought, 'Strange, why is it so quiet in here?'"

All eyes are fixed on a television; outside, the footage from Hamburg is being shown on the big screen – and disaster strikes. Because Bayern Munich's match at HSV is not yet over, as everyone had assumed. Referee Markus Merk has awarded an indirect free-kick to the record champions following what is arguably the most famous back-pass in football history.

Oliver Kahn barged into the Hamburg penalty area, Stefan Effenberg flicked the ball on, and Patrik Andersson hammered it into the net—simultaneously striking the hearts of thousands of fans 300 kilometres away. "I didn't even watch the free-kick because I was so scared," says Asamoah. "Then I just heard the players shouting and throwing things around. That's when I knew what had happened."

Tears of joy instantly turn to a sea of grief. "I no longer believe in the football god," manager Assauer later tells reporters. That single strike would also shape the career of the young Asamoah, who would later become a national team player and a crowd favourite: "I was young and believed I had plenty of time to become a champion. But seeing older people crying there, that really gets to you. It was a bitter experience."

A week later S04 won the DFB Cup, yet for many fans the most dramatic Bundesliga final in history remains seared in memory. "Champions of the hearts – it sounds nice, but it doesn't do me any good. I'd rather have been holding up the championship trophy," Schalke's legendary coach Huub Stevens told kicker 25 years on.

More than most clubs, Schalke is defined by dramatic failure, shattered dreams and painful relegations, not by a string of successes. In 1972, the Bundesliga scandal ripped apart a young, highly talented side. The 1980s saw the cult club yo-yo between the top flight and the second tier three times, and recent years have been just as turbulent, with the club narrowly avoiding a drop to the third division.

"The club and the fans simply deserve to be back in the Bundesliga," says Asamoah of the recent promotion he watched from afar. Staying up next term is the clear goal, and to achieve it—just as in 2001—"we'll have to show how we stick together as Schalke 04."

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