Edin Džeko returns to Bundesliga at Augsburg; becomes 8th-oldest to appear in Bundesliga.
Schalke striker Edin Džeko makes Bundesliga return - 5,734 days after his last appearance | Bundesliga
Schalke striker Edin Džeko makes Bundesliga return - 5,734 days after his last appearance
Schalke’s long-awaited Bundesliga return did not quite go according to plan at Augsburg on Sunday, but the encounter at the WWK Arena was a memorable one nonetheless for veteran striker Edin Džeko.
A mere 5,734 days after his last appearance in the division, Džeko returned to German football’s top table with a 14-minute second-half cameo against Manuel Baum ’s side - and in doing so, the evergreen frontman created another small piece of Bundesliga history.
Aged 40 years and 166 days, Džeko is now the eighth-oldest player ever to appear in Germany’s top flight. Only three outfield players - Klaus Fichtel, Claudio Pizarro and Mirko Votava - sit above the Bosnia and Herzegovina striker in the rankings.
Meanwhile, the gap between Džeko’s final Bundesliga outing for Wolfsburg in 2010
11, and his first for Schalke in 2026
27, is a remarkable 15 years and 255 days.
That figure is surpassed only by former Waldhof Mannheim and Karlsruhe player Wolfgang Böhni, who appeared for Mannheim 16 years and 245 days after his final run-out for the KSC.
Džeko was unable to mark his Bundesliga return with a consolation effort at the WWK Arena, but a goal in the next two months would make him the second-oldest player - after Pizarro - to find the net in Bundesliga history.
Any effort after that would give him the record outright.
Watch: ‘I still have the passion’ - Džeko
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Oldest players in Bundesliga history:
Klaus Fichtel: 43 years, 184 days
Uli Stein: 42 years, 170 days
Toni Schumacher: 42 years, 73 days
Claudio Pizarro: 41 years, 268 days
Mirko Votava: 40 years, 225 days
Bernd Dreher: 40 years, 198 days
Jens Lehmann: 40 years, 179 days
Edin Džeko: 40 years, 166 days
Manuel Neuer: 40 years, 154 days
Manfred Burgsmüller: 40 years, 141 days
Longest gap between two Bundesliga appearances:
Wolfgang Böhni: 16 years, 245 days
Edin Džeko: 15 years, 255 days
Michael Langer: 13 years, 271 days
Robert Nikolic: 13 years, 62 days
Bernd Schuster: 12 years, 335 days
Rudolf Müller: 12 years, 328 days
Philipp Tschauner: 11 years, 301 days
Daniel Batz: 11 years, 212 days
Stephan Täuber: 11 years, 59 days
Sami Khedira: 10 years, 273 days
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