December 10, 2021
Schalke are reportedly
the third best supported side in Germany, but following a disastrous 2020/21 season
they were relegated to Bundesliga 2 after winning just 3 matches and gathering only
16 points.
They are not the only
famous names now plying their trade in the second level in Germany, which
includes many of the staple names from when I started following the Bundesliga
in the early 1990, such as Hamburger SV, Werder Bremen, Fortuna Dusseldorf,
Hansa Rostock, Dynamo Dresden, Karlsruher SC, Hannover and today’s opponents,
Nurnberg. Sides such as Paderborn and
Ingolstadt have recently experienced Bundesliga football, and in recent seasons
Regensburg, Kiel and Heidenheim have come close to winning promotion. In
summary, just like the English Championship, it is a tough division to get out of
!
These diaries last
featured Bundesliga 2 in May 2020 when Bochum vs Heidenheim was one of the
first matches to be played in Germany after the first Covid lockdown.
In that report I noted
that I visited Bochum in November 1991 to see the local derby against Schalke,
where the home side were victorious 1-0 in front of a 41,000 sell-out crowd
thanks to an injury time winner from Uwe Wegmann. My only visit to a Schalke
home match was in May 1993, when a crowd of 31,700 witnessed a 2-0 home win
over Dynamo Dresden at their old Parkenstadion, and a young Steffan Freund was
on the bench for Schalke.
My next Schalke match
was in November 1994 when driving back from a work assignment in Denmark I
stopped off to watch a Friday night Bundesliga fixture in Bremen, where Werder
were victorious 2-1 in front of a crowd of 31,940. The Werder side that night
included Andreas Herzog, Oliver Reck, Dieter Eilts, Marius Basler and Marco
Bode, whereas Schalke’s included Jens Lehmann, Jiri Nemec, Youri Mulder and
Ingo Anderbrugge.
Thanks to satellite
TV, my parents living in Wales were able to watch a lot of German football in
the 1990s and 2000s and they became fans of Schalke under the stewardship of
Huub Stevens, Ralf Rangnick and Juup Heynckes. During the 2006 World Cup, with
the England vs Portugal quarter final being played in the Veltsins Arena in
Gelsenkirschen, I took the opportunity to visit the Schalke Fan shop in the
city center before the game to buy some souvenirs for them !
I have also been able
to visit Nurnberg’s Frankenstadion ( or the Max Morlock stadium as it is now
officially named ) in May 1995 when along with 14,400 others I watched the home
side beat Homburg 3-0, which essentially secured Nurnberg’s survival in
Budesliga 2 for that season whilst confirming relegation for Homburg.
Schalke have so far
made a moderate start to their bid to get back to the Bundesliga, going into
today’s match in 8th place with 8-2-6 record but sat only three
points off 2nd place. They have lost three of their last 5 matches,
with the most recent match being a 1-2 loss at leaders St Pauli. At home, Schalke’s record was 4-1-3, with Hamburger
SV, Karlsruhe and Darmstadt all leaving the Veltsin Arena with three points.
Ex-Hamburg, Koln and
Stuttgart forward Simon Terrode was their top scorer with 12 goals but has
missed the last two games. Japanese defender Ko Itakura is on loan from
Manchester City, having previously been on loan at Groningen, Dutch defender Thomas
Ouwejan is on loan from AZ Alkmaar, Icelandic ex-Liverpool, Dagenham and
Hibernian midfielder Victor Palsson has 31 caps, Uruguayan midfielder Rodrigo
Zalazar is on loan from Eintracht Frankfurt, striker Rudat Dadashov has 25 caps
for Azerbaijan and midfielder Marcin Kaminski has 7 caps for Poland.
Nurnberg sat in 5th
place with a 7-6-3 record to be 2 points from second place. They had a 2-4-1
away record, with the only away defeat coming at the end of October when they
lost 0-2 at Darmstadt. However, they too had lost three of their last 5
matches, although their last outing was a 2-1 victory over Kiel.
19 year old Erik
Shuranov was their top scorer with 5 goals, ex-Cardiff, St Pauli and Genk
midfielder Mats Daehli has 29 caps for
Norway, centre-back Christopher Schindler played for Huddersfield during their
seasons in the Premiership, midfielder Lino Tempelmann is on loan from
Freiburg, midfielder Johannes Geis has played for Schalke and Sevilla, and Tim
Handwerker is no doubt the source of many punchlines !
Schalke have the
highest average home attendance in the division so far this season with 33,577,
followed by Hamburger SV on 25,629 then Werder Bremen with 25,528. The average
for Nurnberg is 16,730. However, attendances at matches in the early part of
the season were restricted in capacity due to the Covid rules in place at the
time, but crowds of over 50,000 were present for Schalke’s home games against
Dynamo Dresden and Darmstadt. Due to the recent escalation in the number of
Covid cases in Germany, measures have been re-introduced last week restricting
attendances to 50% of capacity, with a maximum of 15,000.
Last season BT Sport had
the UK rights to cover the Bundesliga and regularly broadcast 2 or 3 matches a
week from Bundesliga 2. The TV rights are now owned by Sky Sports but they are
yet to show any Bundesliga 2 matches, but all matches are live streamed on
Bet365.com, who made Schalke 13/10 favourites, Nurnberg 9/4 outsiders and the
draw at 23/10. The temperature at the 18.30 local time kick-off was 2 degrees
and the weather was dry.
Schalke made three
changes from the side that started the 1-2 loss at St Pauli, with North
Macedonian International striker Darko Churlinov, on loan from VFB Stuttgart,
replacing Dadashov, and Austrian Reinhold
Ranftl ( 6 caps ) and Kosovan Blendi Idrizi ( 2 caps ) coming into midfield to
replace the injured Dominick Drexler whilst Mehmet-Can Aydin dropped to the
bench. Schalke head coach Dimitrios Grammozi had Covid so was self isolating.
Nurnberg made just one
change to their previous starting XI, with the superbly named Fabian Nurnberger
coming into midfield in place of the suspended Lino Tempelmann. Unfortunately,
Nurnberger is not a local boy, growing up in Hamburg !
After a quiet
beginning with Schalke having most of the possession, Nurnberg created the
first two chances of the match. First Valentini’s dangerous low cross from the
right just evaded Shuranov, and then in the 16th minute Nurnburger’s
cross was met by Schaffler, whose header bounced of back from the base of the
post and the Nurnberg player following up completely missed his kick.
Schalke immediately
responded, Zalazar shot narrowly over the bar before they took the lead in the
19th minute. Churlinov beat two defenders on the left but his shot
from a tight angle was blocked by keeper Mathenia. However, the ball went in
the direction of Ouwejan who athletically stretched to volley left footed to
score from 6 yards.
After Zalazar sent a
long range shot straight at the Nurnberg keeper, Churlinov came to the fore. In
the 28th minute, he cut inside Handwerker to shoot narrowly over
from the edge of the area, and two minutes later Mathenia made a good save to
deny the North Macedonian.
Schalke should have
doubled their lead in the 31st minute. After Nurnberg centre-back
Schindler slipped, Idrizi pounced but his close range effort hit Mathenia on
the chest. The rebound reached Ranftl on the angle of the 6 yard box but Mathenia
remarkably managed to get a hand the shot to deflect onto the crossbar.
A dreadful pass by
Schalke keeper Fraisl gave the visitors a chance for the equalizer, but after Daehli
chest trapped the attempted pass along the by-line, his shot from an acute
angle was blocked by Fraisl and over the bar for a corner.
Nurnberg then had a
goal disallowed. Nurnberger ran onto a ball over the back-line, chest controlled
and volleyed but Fraisl blocked the shot. Although the rebound was put into the
back of the net by Schaffler the flag had been raised for offside against Nurnberger.
Schalke finished the
half strongly. Kaminski met a corner at the near post but his first time shot was
blocked on the line for another corner. This time Ouwejan’s delivery to the
near post was glanced by Palsson but the ball went agonizingly just wide of the
far post. In added on time Mathenia made another stunning save, this time
tipping Idrizi’s 20 yarder over the bar.
The Nurnberg
shot-stopper had kept the score down to just 0-1 at the break as Schalke had 14
shots on goal. However, Nurnberg had some chances of their own and were not out
of the game.
The first yellow card of
the match was shown in the 47th to the unfortunate Pierlinger, who
had been pulled back across the chest by Geis and then slipped and made contact
with a Nurnberg defender. However, it was the Schalke player whose was shown
the card.
Nurnberg were back on
level terms three minutes into the second half. Valentini sent a curling
left-footed cross from the right beyond the far post where Schaffler headed
back across goal for Nurnberger to strike on the bounce and send the ball into
the far corner.
Zalazar went on
another dribble but shot into the side netting, and then delivered a good cross
to Pieringer but a poor first touch 12 yards from goal allowed a clearance to
be made.
In the 55th
minute it looked like Nurnberg would take the lead. A long range shot was poorly
handled by Fraisl and the ball went loose to Schaffler. A sliding block by
Itakura, which looked like it also included the use of an arm, denied the
striker but rather than a penalty the referee awarded a free-kick to Schalke
for an offside against Schaffler when the original shot was made.
After a period when
not a lot happened, the game came back into life in the 66th minute
with a stunning own goal. A Schalke corner was headed clear to Idrizi over 20 yards away from goal, and his attempt was going wide when Schaffler tried to
block, but only succeeded in heading the ball into the opposite corner with his
keeper stranded. Hardly the way he would have wanted to score..........
Schalke could have
extended their lead 5 minutes later when Ranftl sent a cross to the middle of
the Nurnberg 6 yard box but Flick headed it wide of the post from three yards.
A quick goal-kick from the Schalke keeper gave Churlinov the chance to run onto
it but Mathenia got there first and made a leaping clearance, but in the
process the keeper also made contact with Valentini who suffered a nasty
looking head injury. The full-back had to be helped off the pitch by two
trainers and was replaced by Pascal Kopke, son of the former Germany
goal-keeper and Nurnberg legend Andreas Kopke.
Schalke sealed their
victory 5 minutes from time. Zalazar this time sent a long range effort on
target, with Mathenia doing well to dive and prevent it from flying into the
bottom corner, but Churlinov was the quickest to react and calmly rounded the
prone keeper to roll the ball into the empty net to cap a man-of-the match
performance.
The icing on the
Schalke cake was a fourth goal in added on time, when Itakura played a one-two with Dadashov on the edge of the Nurnberg area and then side-footed into the corner of the
net.
Overall, it was a
fully deserved victory for Schalke which puts them back into the promotion mix
FC Schalke 04 : Fraisl – Ouwejan, Itakura, Thiaw, Kaminski – Palsson,
Zalazar ( Aydin ), Idrizi ( Flick ), Ranftl – Pieringer, Churlinov ( Dadashov )
FC Nurnberg : Mathenia – Valentini ( Kopke ), Schindler, Sorensen,
Handwerker – Krauss ( Duman ), Geis, Nurnberger – Shuranov ( Borowski ), Daehli
( Dovedan ), Schaffler
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