Since the beginning of the second half of the season, Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund have shared the same middle name: the unequal rivals can call themselves undefeated on an honorary basis, and that hasn’t changed even after the two natural archenemies met. 2:2 was the result after 93 minutes of a memorable derby that caused a lot of excitement. However, the winner in the tie was clearly the host, the euphoric sound from the stands of the Gelsenkirchen Arena expressed it. For Schalke 04, the point, which was not only achieved with hard work, is worth more than for BVB, which fell short of its potential. While Schalke kept up with the competition in the relegation battle, Dortmund fell back a bit in the duel with FC Bayern.
“We knew that if we allowed the opponent to lead the game with passion, it would be close. It got very emotional in the second half, we didn’t want to let that happen and that’s very disappointing. We deserved more than a draw, so it was very frustrating for us in the end,” complained BVB coach Edin Terzic. Schalke coach Thomas Reis refrained from telling heroic legends. Winning the point was a little lucky, he admitted, but it was still the result of strong will: “We worked hard to get the draw,” he said. He was “a bit more euphoric” than his colleague, he added with a smile.
The class difference between the two teams was rarely hidden. As expected, Borussia was clearly the superior team in terms of play, and the excellent parrying Ralf Fährmann in particular kept the damage for his eleven within limits. Thanks to strong positional play, he defused several tricky confrontations with the opposing attackers, Donyell Malen, Raphael Guerreiro and Marius Wolf each lost out. Only a dry long-range shot by Nico Schlotterbeck presented Fährmann with an unsolvable task (38th minute). Schalke had given the constantly stormy defender too much space.
The multitude of possibilities spoke for BVB, but the 1-0 half-time lead for the guests was debatable after Schalke had missed the best chance of the encounter when the score was 0-0: Rodrigo Zalazar stormed single-handedly towards BVB keeper Alexander Meyer – and hastily shot the ball into the evening sky. His colleagues from Dortmund had served him the template for the solo: Schlotterbeck played Mats Hummels in such a risky way that the rarely used but pretty word “colleague mutilation” came to mind. Hummels, otherwise a sovereign authority in BVB coverage, did not get the pass under control and promptly lost the ball to Zalazar.
“We opened the door for the opponent to make the game more open again,” said Terzic
During the break, Schalke had apparently encouraged each other. If they had previously fallen back too often on the defensive, they now made more use of their manageable but quite effective offensive means. The reward came quickly when Jude Bellingham lost the ball to Alex Kral in midfield and Marius Bülter completed the subsequent counterattack with an equalizer (50′).
The game threatened to tip over, Schalke pushed ahead, BVB lapsed into passivity, only Guerreiro 2: 1 after a strong pass from Emre Can seemed to straighten out the relationship between favorites and outsiders (60th). However, Dortmund were not able to hurt the opponent’s morale, they did not manage to play a dominant game. “We opened the door for the opponent to make the game more open again,” said Terzic, “so in the end we can’t complain about the result.”
The man who set the crucial end came onto the pitch in the 74th minute in the course of a desperate-looking castling. Not many fans called his name when the stadium announcer announced the substitution. After 15 mostly short to very short appearances without scoring or assists, the confidence in Kenan Karaman’s attacking power is not the greatest among Schalke supporters. Rouven Schröder had brought the attacker from Turkey on the last day of the summer transfer window and since then there has been one question in particular: why was the 29-year-old Karaman given a three-year contract?
Well, no one asks that unfriendly question at Schalke anymore after Karaman headed Marius Bülter’s cross into the corner in the 79th minute. From now on and forever he can introduce himself as a derby hero in Gelsenkirchen, and that is a middle name that will never go away in this place.