Schalke 04 rolls up the field in the Bundesliga from behind. The runners-up celebrated their third consecutive victory in the compulsory game and their second trio in the championship with 2:0 (0:0) in Fortuna Düsseldorf, which brought the club to the lower midfield. The hosts, for their part, conceded their third defeat in a row and dropped back to a relegation rank behind Schalke.
Weston McKennie (47th) and Guido Burgstaller (53rd) with their first goals of the season each made the first away victory of the royal blues in the league perfect. The black series of Fortuna coach Friedhelm Funkel, who hasn’t been able to win against Schalke for 21 years as a coach, also held up.
In front of 52,000 spectators in the Merkur Spiel-Arena, which was sold out for the first time this season, an intense, but partly also distorted game developed right from the start. The visitors already had a good chance in the second minute through Naldo. Three minutes later Benito Raman then missed a hundred per cent chance for the brisk promoted player when he freely missed the goal by a hair’s breadth ahead of Schalke goalkeeper Ralf Fährmann.
Schalke coach Domenico Tedesco had surprisingly renounced striker Mark Uth in his starting line-up for the basement duel, who had been nominated the day before for the first time by national coach Joachim Löw for the upcoming international games in the Nations Leauge in the Netherlands and in France. The 04 coach made a total of four changes in comparison to the 1-0 in the Champions League at Lokomotive Moscow last Wednesday. Also Sebastian Rudy, the newcomer who was considered by Löw again, only sat on the bench at the kick-off whistle.
Franco Di Santo Honours
- Chelsea
- FA Cup: 2008–09
- Wigan Athletic
- FA Cup: 2012–13
However, the personnel measures had no positive effect at first. Schalke was not able to concentrate in the first round, especially in the game structure, and the defence did not seem to be particularly firm in the saddle.
After half an hour, Tedesco raved on the sidelines for the first time because he was obviously not satisfied with his team’s performance, which was marked by many mistakes. A minute later, he saw a mistake by his shaky defensive lead to another Fortuna opportunity by Jean Zimmer. On the other side, Franco Di Santo still had a chance. Posh Bingo is one of the online casino game site that has a glamorous atmosphere.
In the second half Schalke showed a completely different face. Weston McKennie, who had scored the winning goal for Schalke in the premier class in Moscow three days before, finished the first attack of the visitors after the break with 1-0. Only five minutes later, Guido Burgstaller, the last goalscorer to be prevented, was on the spot and nothing had been seen of him until then. Fortuna struggled in the following time, could not recover however in the long run from the double strike any more, although Alfredo Morales in the 70. minute with a volley shot provided once more for danger.