Sunday May 16, 2021
Spectacular victory against Frankfurt
A very bitter realization for Schalke 04
By Tobias Nordmann
Schalke 04 is doing Borussia Dortmund of all places a huge favor. The bottom of the table defeated Eintracht Frankfurt and thus enables BVB a match point in the fight for the Champions League qualification. The win shows Schalke a big mistake.
Gerald Asamoah has his smile back. Oh no, he’s got his smile back. Three and a half weeks after the shocking night of violence and hate against the footballers, coaches and supervisors of FC Schalke 04, the team manager stood on this Saturday afternoon in the home arena and hugged Blendi Idrizi, who was storming wildly at him. And laughed. Idrizi had previously achieved something that not many players of the traditional Gelsenkirchen club had succeeded in this season. He had scored a goal. With courage and conviction. It was 2: 2 (52nd) in the spectacular 4: 3 win against Eintracht Frankfurt. Against a (admittedly weak) premier class candidate. Crazy.
Even crazier: The Dortmund team is particularly happy about this first third win of the season for Schalke. They are connected to the club in a not always friendly arch rivalry. Dortmund are happy because they now have a match point in the battle for the Champions League. If they defeat FSV Mainz 05 in the evening, who made relegation fixed in their absence on Saturday, then the premier class is booked. After a difficult second half of the season, that wasn’t a matter of course for a long time and is mainly thanks to a very impressive final sprint. Well, Schalke is far from an impressive final sprint. But the game against Eintracht gave the fans the feeling: this team is not giving away.
And this team was more brave than ever before. Coach Dimitrios Grammozis, who has to read about himself these days that there may be doubts about his work despite a job promise for league two, had sent three not yet established talents into his starting line-up. Winger Mehmet Aydin was allowed to play for the fifth time, the midfield boys Idrizi and Florian Flick for the second and third time respectively. And they all did well. Idrizi and Flick even celebrated their goal premieres. Well, a nice finding. Especially with a view to the next season, which the bottom of the table will tackle with the mission of direct promotion. That a man from the miner’s forge played well with Timo Becker, nice thing. And Matthew Hoppe, who had a spectacular form high at the beginning of the year, also showed up again. He also met. He also finished with courage and conviction.
“You ran for your life”
“There was a team on the field with a lot of young players from the U23. They ran for their lives,” praised Asamoah at Sky and added: “That is the approach that we have to have. For us it is now about to play the next game in the same way. It’s just nice that the guys have done everything. ” Well, somehow a bitter realization. Because the club could have gone this way, with young, hungry players, coach Grammozis could have gone earlier. Because when he took over as the fifth coach of the season at the beginning of March, relegation was long since unlikely. Sure, mathematically everything was still possible that he still mostly trusted the players who for almost a year and a half have had a hard time doing their job properly, it did not ensure understanding everywhere.
But now the trainer was happy about the strong foundation that will form the foundation for the upcoming mission. In addition to those who have now been deployed, the potential candidates include Kerim Çalhanoğlu, Can Bozdoğan, Levent Mercan and Nassim Boujellab, who are already playing this season. Supplemented by newcomers such as Simon Terodde and Danny Latza. And maybe there will be Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, who also made it clear against Frankfurt that his body may be malad, but that he still has an excellent feeling for his craft.
“All grains left in the square”
He got the early lead in the margin after his penalty had been saved. He prepared the goal of Idrizi with the hoe well worth seeing. Well, Grammozis especially praised his youngsters: “Compliments also to the Knappenschmiede, who managed to get the young players to such a good level. It makes me incredibly proud to work with these guys because they show that every day they want to join the team. The boys put everything into it until the last second to get the victory over the stage. We left all the seeds on the pitch. “
Well, nobody knows what would have happened if the Grammozis had turned around early after taking office, if he had bet on radical change early in the season. This irrepressible will to be able to play the great pride for this club, it might have saved the club so much embarrassment, so many hard-to-bear listlessness of the established stars (measured by salary, not by performance). Whether he could have averted the horror scenario, probably not.
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