Cologne saves the victory – somehow: A merciless shock for Schalke 04

Wednesday 20th January 2021

Cologne saves the victory – somehow
A merciless shock for Schalke 04

What a game in Gelsenkirchen: Free of any art that is called football, FC Schalke 04 and 1. FC Köln fight a duel that is defined by fighting and characterized by mistakes. In stoppage time, the guests cheer, although they were actually no longer in the game.

Klaas-Jan Huntelaar suffered in the stands when Schalke 04 took the next step towards the 2nd division. Without the returnee, who should help with his goals in the relegation battle, the Royal Blues lost the terribly bad basement duel against 1. FC Köln 1: 2 (0: 1) and finished the first half of the season for the first time in 27 years – with only seven points .

Jan Thielmann (90 + 3) scored the winning goal for Cologne, who set eight points away from Schalke in stoppage time. Rafael Czichos (31st) had previously scored for FC, while American Matthew Hoppe equalized with his fifth goal in the last three Bundesliga games (57th).

Hope Huntelaar, who signed a contract until the end of the season on Tuesday, had to pass due to calf problems – and saw as a spectator that the fourth descent in history is becoming more and more realistic. The 4-0 win against TSG Hoffenheim, which ended the horror series of 30 unsuccessful Bundesliga games a week and a half ago, was not yet the hoped-for turnaround.

"He is not 100 percent resilient, the risk is too great for me," said coach Christian Gross before the game at Sky about Huntelaar. The Dutchman, who scored 126 goals in 240 competitive games for Gelsenkirchen between 2010 and 2017, is "hot, he feels as if he has never been away". Huntelaar had driven to the arena in the team bus and was sitting in the stands right behind the coaching bench. "I told him to feel like a coach," said Gross.

Schalke starts aggressively

Huntelaar saw an aggressive start to his team, which immediately took control of the game into their own hands. A long-range shot by Suat Serdar forced Cologne keeper Timo Horn to make a strong save (4th). The guests were initially completely on the defensive, in the forward they regularly lost the ball very quickly. However, Schalke made too little of its superiority, even the strong Amine Harit failed with a long-range shot to Horn (26th), Mark Uth shot from eight Meters just over the bar (27th). The Cologne lead did not fall out of the blue, because a series of four corners within a few minutes led to chaos in the Schalke defense. After Ralf Fährmann parried a corner too short, a failed shot from Dominick Drexler landed on Czichos' head.

After the break, Fährmann was initially lucky when his defender Ozan Kabak steered the ball against the post (54th). Then Schalke stepped up its attack efforts – and Hoppe hit again. Huntelaar jumped up in the stands cheering. The hosts were now pushing for another goal, Cologne had to work a lot on the defensive to defend the 1-1. However, that didn't change the poor quality of the game. Both teams outdid each other with mistakes and misunderstandings.

But then the Cologne struck ice cold. Out of nowhere.