Schalke 04 have announced that duo Junior Caicara and Phil Neumann will leave the Bundesliga club for Istanbul Basaksehir and FC Ingolstadt 04 respectively.

Caicara made 26 league appearances for the Gelsenkirchen club during the two seasons the Brazilian featured for the Bundesliga club, whilst Neumann never made an appearance for the first-team but played a part in the under-19 side in the Regionalliga West.

Speaking to the club’s official website, Schalke sporting director Christian Heidel said about the departure of Caicara: “Caicara asked us to switch clubs again, as he had received a very good offer from Turkey. We granted this wish since we were able to also preserve the interests of FC Schalke 04."

He added, “We thank Caicara for all his efforts and wish him all the best for the future.”

Free to go

Caicara joined Schalke in the summer of 2015 from Bulgarian champions PFK Ludogorets for a reported fee of £3.8 million. In his debut season, the Brazilian winger made 32 appearances in all competitions for the Ruhr based club, bagging five assists from the right back position.

However, this season the 27-year-old midfielder has only featured nine times for Schalke, and only making three league appearances in which he started just one game, a 1-0 defeat away from home against Eintracht Frankfurt in the opening day of the season.

Schalke born-and-raised

Neumann came through the Schalke youth academy after joining his boyhood club at the age of eight-years-old. The attacking full back has featured for Schalke II this season, making eight appearances for the Gelsenkirchen’s team’s best youth team.

The defender’s performances have resulted in Neumann being called up for the German under-19 and under-20 national youth teams over the past two years. The Schalke youth academy product will join Ingolstadt in the summer of 2017.

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Dylan Walsh
Student at the University of Brighton, 20-years-old, Twitter: @dylanwalsh_