New game, new luck – the old casino motto applies from round to round in Gelsenkirchen, but on Saturday afternoon the ball did not roll in favor of the chronically winless Schalke team, the game against VfL Wolfsburg ended 0-2. Lower Saxony, who were still undefeated in the season, confirmed their strong form with a remarkable performance and had things under control from start to finish. Fast goals by Wout Weghorst and Xaver Schlager proved the self-confidence of the guests. The only gain for Schalke was that they were able to free themselves from their meanwhile questionable inferiority and avert an impending debacle. They balanced the second half and missed a number of opportunities to catch up. This is hardly a consolation after 24 league games without a win. On the relegation area, you have already made yourself at home.
“We are of course disappointed and angry, especially when it comes to the first 30 minutes”, was Manuel Baum’s analysis. “With the ball as well as against the ball, we didn’t get anything on the plate,” said the Schalke coach.
Striker Mark Uth was completely dejected in front of the Sky microphone: “I’m so served, you can’t imagine it. It’s so sad to play football without power. We are played, we don’t get into the duels, we don’t get a yellow card. We all play very, very bad football. I don’t know how we’re going to win a game like that. ” When asked what should happen now, he said: “We have to carry on. I’m so served and angry at the moment. I would like to go into the cabin and cry.”
The day had started with a success message. Schalke missed him longingly for seven weeks, and on Saturday Suat Serdar was back on the pitch. Baum shared the hope of making the notoriously random offensive game more systematic and dynamic, but before Serdar could devote himself to accelerating the attacks, he and his colleagues were forced to take the defensive.
Right from the start, the Wolfsburg appeared as if they had had a lot of concentrated feed for breakfast, while the Schalke team seemed to have received a very meager meal. Hardly three minutes had been played, when it was boiling hot in the Schalke penalty area, the following corner already brought the 0: 1, center forward Weghorst had enough time to calculate and use Maximilian Arnold’s cross – his opponent Malik Thiaw respectfully kept his distance .
Wolfsburg is also physically superior to Schalke
The absence of the regular defenders Salif Sané (injured) and Ozan Kabak (battered on the bench) made itself felt in the Schalke defense association, there was great unrest in the cover center when the energetic, extremely dominant Wolfsburg approached. The young right-back Kilian Ludewig also regularly lost the fight against his nervousness and had to pay copious amounts of money. The physically massively superior VfL let the balls circulate with accuracy and precision, the blues ran after and did not understand how to organize against the fast waves of attack.
Frederik Rönnow, now officially number one in Schalker Tor, got work every minute and cleared away whatever he had to pack. The 0: 2 threatened several times and in the 22nd minute the time had come. Again there was one of these rapid and direct advances, at the end of which two Wolfsburgers stood free in the penalty area: Weghorst did not hit the ball properly, but thereby put it ready for Schlager to shoot. It now looked somewhat precarious for Schalke, but the Wolfsburg forward drive subsided a little in view of the reassuring leadership. Gradually Serdar’s presence also paid off, with ball wins and a few scenes that lived up to the claim to top division football.
With Baum’s change, the Schalke game will get better
Baum also responded with a striking substitution: Amine Harit, ineffective as a creative player and a constant threat to teammates as a loss of ball factor, had to leave after 38 minutes (and did so with a sprint without a greeting into the cabin tunnel), Benito Raman came. The statisticians later reported: Harit’s quota of duels won was zero percent – sounds like a record. Now the Schalke team went into action in at least the same number and even had good opportunities before the break thanks to Goncalo Paciencia and Raman.
The trend continued in the second half, and Wolfsburg was challenged. Baum had gutted the defense, switched from a five-man to a four-man chain and deployed another attacker with Skrzybski, all of which was expressed in a delicate siege of the Wolfsburg penalty area and further opportunities from Paciencia, Skrzybski and again Paciencia. “It only got a little better after we switched,” Baum noted.
In between, Weghorst could have put an end to all doubts, but failed because of Rönnow (61st). Eventually, however, the Schalke belief that they could still turn the game faded, and both sides were now content with the standard program. The final bang was reserved for Schalke – Benito Raman’s violent shot in the final minute made a lot of noise, but only landed on the crossbar. It doesn’t get any easier with the first victory for the violently fallen giant from Gelsenkirchen: The next opponents are Mönchengladbach and Leverkusen.
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