When the referee Bastian Dankert called for the second half at 7:38 p.m. on Saturday evening, FC Schalke 04 were almost on their last hour. The hosts were 1-0 down against Werder Bremen at half-time, and the consequences were well known. Schalke could no longer afford the luxury of losing points against their co-promoted team in the constant race to catch up that the current second half of the season represents for them. The game days are running out, the final program with tasks in Mainz, Munich and Leipzig is intense.
Accordingly, Schalke desperately sought their salvation in attack, the audience in the sold-out Festspielhaus supported them with all their might, and SV Werder did them the favor of reducing their own offensive efforts to a minimum. There is no way around the term intensity to describe the efforts of the Blues, but they had to wait until the penultimate minute to be rewarded for their increasingly dramatic efforts – and then a scream went through the arena that echoed at least as far as the Weserbergland.
Dominick Drexler, just the man who had prevented the 1:2 and thus the presumed knockout of the season with a rescue in front of the goal line, was suddenly right in front of Jiri Pavlenka after Rodrigo Zalazar’s magic pass to shovel the ball into the corner. A quick look over his shoulder at the linesman, and then he knew: no offside, no objections from the rulers – he really had just scored the 2-1 that keeps Schalke’s hopes of staying in the class alive.
Nobody knows yet whether Drexler’s goal, in addition to three points, also helps to secure the big goal, but at least for a few hours and days the midfielder who came on in the 75th minute made a happy impact on the lives of Schalke fans all over the world world intervened. It was celebrated in the arena that the stands shook.
The Bremen confirm the reputation of a team with superior playing skills
On the podium in the press room sat Bremen coach Ole Werner, who looked a little more sober than he usually does: Schalke’s equalizer – through substitute defender Sepp van den Berg in the 81st minute – was the logical consequence of his own passivity , he said. “We haven’t found our own game anymore,” he stated in protocol style. His Schalke colleague also had his feelings under control again when he surveyed the situation: “We’re happy that we were able to turn this game around and are still in the race,” said Thomas Reis, but despite all the relief he didn’t want to do without the critical review .
Against Werder Bremen in the role of double savior: Dominick Drexler helps Schalke 04 to score important points with his goal.
(Photo: Revierfoto/Imago)
He couldn’t like the inhibited performance of his team during the first half. Nevertheless, he refrained from making changes and was rewarded: On probation, the same eleven pulled themselves together for an energy performance and thus laid the foundation for the turnaround until the successful substitutions: “If you still turn around a game like this and get three points, then it can release forces again,” said Reis. Such a win is particularly good, said attacker Marius Bülter on the TV microphone: “If you score the decisive goal at the last minute, it feels extremely good.”
But before joy came suffering. The fans in the north curve kept up the morale with songs, animation came from the lawn at best sparsely. While Schalke bore the burden of their big task in the first half and their one-dimensional attacks were mostly initiated by high balls forward, mostly aimed at the unfortunate Simon Terodde, Bremen confirmed the reputation of a team with superior playing skills. In the opposing half, Jens Stage, Maximilian Philipp, Marvin Ducksch and Leonardo Bittencourt spun the ball with ease, in flowing combinations one man always paved the way for the next, which looked like precise choreography and free improvisation at the same time.
After just a few minutes, defense chief Maya Yoshida needed a heroic tackle against Leonardo Bittencourt’s shot to prevent the deficit. Ten minutes later, however, the Schalke defenders were just amazed spectators when Werder, after losing the ball by Zalazar in attacking midfield, maneuvered forward with military precision until Ducksch was cleared in the penalty area and deliberately shot the ball into the corner.
Ducksch, who was still an excellent substitute for the injured centre-forward Niclas Füllkrug, missed the chance to make it 2-0 fifteen minutes before the end when he flicked just wide of the goal from half-distance. Not many Schalke supporters expected the equalizer, let alone that the young defender van den Berg could shoot him.
The Dutchman, on loan from Liverpool FC, had to sit out half a year due to an ankle injury, one of many injuries suffered by Schalke – and now he came on as a late substitute and scored like a practiced goalscorer with the second or third ball contact. His 1-1 lead started a final phase in which Bremen were always a little closer to 2-1 than Schalke, who were running wildly forward. Until Dominick Drexler slipped into the role of the double rescuer within two minutes. Maybe an ephemeral role, maybe one for the Schalke history books.