Afterwards, Marius Bülter was once again in great demand – as a conversation partner in the role that is slowly becoming routine for him. Once again, the left winger of FC Schalke 04 made a significant contribution to the fact that two series continued. Not only the team of coach Thomas Reis found a continuation in the 1-1 (0-0) in Augsburg, but also Bülter’s personal one, which is closely connected to the superior one.
With his converted penalty kick in the third minute of added time, Bülter scored a goal in the fourth Bundesliga game in a row. For Schalke it was even the eighth game in a row without a defeat. “We keep our series going,” said the 29-year-old happily.
With Bülter it’s a bit like one of those early evening series in which the roles are clearly assigned and the plot is always the same. The only difference is that Bülter at Schalke does not always make his most important contributions to the overall work quite as dramatically at the end of a game as he does in Augsburg. When his goal streak began, he had scored 2-0 in the 2-1 win against Stuttgart. In the following 2-0 win in Bochum he scored the final score, albeit well before the final whistle. And in the 2: 2 in the Revierderby against Dortmund he managed to make it 1: 1 in the meantime.
This time, however, he almost alone had the spotlight on the penalty kick just before the final whistle. Bülter started, delayed and missed Augsburg goalkeeper Rafał Gikiewicz, who jumped into the other corner. After equalizing, Bülter ran into the curve and enjoyed the happy tumult of the Schalke supporters in the stands. He was later asked whether it had been his most important goal to date. “The others weren’t unimportant either,” Bülter replied with a grin. His coach said he was “very happy that we took something with us”.
Red card for Augsburg brings the turning point – Schalke still plays awkwardly
Augsburg had dominated events for a long time and took the lead through Arne Maier after an unsuccessful liberation from Schalke goalkeeper Ralf Fährmann (51′). Two minutes later, his team-mate Ermedin Demirović saw the red card for a serious foul after accidentally hitting Tom Krauss in the face with his toe.
Due to being outnumbered, the superiority of Augsburg was gone. Now Schalke shaped the game. However, the playful awkwardness of the guests in the majority and behind was particularly clear. Many offensive actions dried up either in the Augsburg defense or, and this happened very often, the Schalke ended their attack attempts themselves by passing the ball unhindered or by hitting crosses into the same.
“The red card helped us a lot to take control of the game. But we solved it very, very badly,” Reis said. Bülter also came to this conclusion. “We brought in a lot of flanks, but hardly any of them arrived. That just can’t be,” he criticized on Sky, “in the end we even had two strikers in front, then the flanks just have to come. Then maybe I’ll even come more chances to score.”
“We feel that every game is a final. There’s a lot of pressure on Schalke in particular.”
Although his streak was continued, as was Schalke’s overall, Bülter is even happy that he can now catch his breath because the Bundesliga is taking a break because of the international matches. “We feel like every game is a final. There’s a lot of pressure on Schalke in particular,” said Bülter, “then it’s good to switch off a bit.”
Many Augsburg players can do that in the next two weeks after their winning streak came to an end. The team of coach Enrico Maassen had previously lined up four home wins. This time, a few minutes were missing to break away from the relegation zone with the fifth home win in a row and also set the club record. After all, the minimum goal of keeping Schalke at a distance has been achieved, Maassen found, and seven points ahead of the relegation place are “very decent”. Schalke, on the other hand, is in 17th relegation place, but is only a few goals behind Hertha BSC on the relegation rank. And the saving place 15 is only one point away. At least in an early evening series, the hero and the plot would be predictable.