Yellow after less than six minutes, as a six an edge: Eder Balanta caught the eye on his debut for Schalke 04, not only because his coach Thomas Reis took the risk of making a slight system adjustment.
You can’t get past this: Eder Balanta vs. Marcus Thuram.
IMAGO/RHR-Photo
Less than two minutes had been played before Christoph Kramer felt like he was hitting a wall. The Gladbacher fell to the ground after a collision on the sidelines and touched his face. The world champion decorated his performance with a lot of theatrics, but the scene at the beginning of the west duel between Borussia and Schalke 04 had symbolic power at the same time: Eder Balanta is hard to ignore.
Schalke’s new midfield edge can also go against the rules. After less than six minutes, he elbowed out the faster Jonas Hofmann in the middle of the field, and referee Deniz Aytekin rightly gave a yellow card for this check. Unlucky from Balanta’s point of view, who therefore had to be careful early on not to be thrown off the pitch at his debut for Schalke. Which is not unlikely given his style of play. The general impression is that Balanta will not be left with the one yellow card from the game in Gladbach.
The defensive midfielder, on loan from Club Brugge, still needs to develop a feel for the speed and aim of the ball with his passes, but of course not everything can go smoothly on the first appearance. Especially since the entire team still has to get used to the innovations related to Balanta.
Special role for the newcomer – Kral likes it
Coach Thomas Reis not only decided to bring Balanta right from the start just a few days after his commitment, but also to slightly adapt the system for access. Balanta acted as the sole six. At this point it was certainly a risk, but it went well, also because the duo Alex Kral/Tom Krauß, acting in front of Balanta, did their jobs attentively.
Above all, Kral played a key role in the 0-0 draw against Gladbach, which gave good impetus from headquarters. The Czech was back in the starting XI for the first time since his long-term back problems and directly underlined how important his skills are for the team – winning the ball, anticipating, overview, strength in tackles.
Reis opted for Kral in the starting XI rather than Rodrigo Zalazar, despite the fact that Zalazar had provided plenty of momentum in his comeback against Köln after coming on. In view of the long absences of the two key players, it was still a bit too early for the coach to put his trust in both at the same time against Borussia. However, against Wolfsburg on Friday (8.30 p.m., LIVE! on kicker), both Kral and Zalazar could be in the starting line-up. This was the case at the end of August in the 1: 6 against Union Berlin.
