FC Schalke 04

So three competitive games played by Schalke so far (2 Bundesliga, 1 DFB Pokal). Pukki only played 62 minutes in the cup so far

Stevens y u no play Pukki??

Now with the loan of Afellay, I fear Teemu Pukki will have it even more difficult to get playing time

He should come to Liverpool. We're so badly in need of a forward, especially one as good as Pukki

how is schalke at the moment?

first cl leg is olympiakos-schalke^^ kyriakos papadopoulos returns home
at least for a bit

any weaknesses on the team?

Well, Schalke is looking okay so far. The last matches were

- Saarbrücken 0:5 Schalke (DFB Pokal)
- Hannover 2:2 Schalke (BL)
- Schalke 3:1 Augsburg (BL)

Schalke still has the goalkeeper plague - Timo Hildebrand injured his knee during training and thus Lars Unnerstall stands between the sticks again.

The defense is rather solid with the likes of Papa and Matip, and the attack line is rather impressive with the likes of Huntelaar, Afellay and Draxler. The weakness is probably the fact that they still concede too many goals even though their defenders aren't half bad. They do score a lot of goals to balance that, though.

It looks as if they would continue where they left off last season. Then they had the 3rd most goals (74, just behind Bayern with 77 and Dortmund with 80), but they conceded almost as many goals (44) as Bayern and Dortmund together (22+25). [By the way, the 44 goals are in fact still the 4th least conceded - most other clubs got even more in.]

If you want to defeat Schalke, the best idea is probably trying to outscore them as you won't avoid conceding goals with their attacking line. Expect high scoring matches. (Hm... the description almost sounds like the Werder Bremen of old XD)

Huntelaar is continuing is great form from last season. Papa is much more mature this year, ans is ready to really explode. Draxler, Holtby, and Pukki are all waiting to explode as well. Schalke are not a team to be reckoned with.

Yeah. IMO Schalke are vastly underrated by people who don't know the BL. This will aid them navigating their CL group, though, and if they actually manage to get past Arsenal well, they might even be able to top their group.

Ciprian Marica scored a goal for Romania against Estonia.The romanian forward is in a good form.He may be a great sub.

I am watching Bundesliga and i know that Schalke is a great team.They are doing well especially in offensive.Last season they scored 74 goals, with 3 goals less than Bayern Munich and 6 goals less than the champions, Borussia Dortmund.We are talking about a german team and they are capable of learning from their mistakes.I bet they worked harder at the training camps this summer and Huub Stevens's strategy should be a good one because he is a good coach.Phisically, Schalke must be a very well prepaired team if they want to make a nice figure in Europe and i am confident that they will be enough prepaired.Maybe not that much like under the command of Felix Magath.

They have problems when it comes about defense.Schalke conceded 44 goals in BL last season (Too much for a '3rd place team'), but as i said earlier, i believe they learned from their own mistakes.The squad seems more experienced than last season (they have Tranquillo Barnetta now and players like Papadopoulous and Draxler know better what europe games mean).Of course they need some luck too.Great performances can't be made without luck.And when i say luck, i am thinking especially about injuries.They really need Timo on the pitch every game and so other players like Huntelaar, Farfan, Draxler, Holtby etc.

Another advantage is the transfer of Afellay.I believe he has an amazing lust for victory and goals because he wasn't even on the bench at most games when he was in Barcelona's squad.

Beating Olympiacos shouldn't be a problem because the football in Greece is in a little crisis right now.Also Montpellier, even if they are the champions of France, now without Giroud they won't be that efficient in attack and of course the players don't have Schalke's players level of experience in Europe.

Arsenal should be a difficult opponent, but also the english team has some problems.They looked weaker than last season in every department.It will be an interesting group and personally i think Schalke must not be underestimated .

@vlafy

I concur with your analysis. I think Huub Stevens should be able to sort out the defense, especially as he is renowned for teams with a solid backline. The famous quote of his is "The zero has to stand" for a reason.

The only drawback is that Schalke continues where they left off with their goalkeeper malaise. Timo Hildebrand got a severe knee injury while training to intercept crosses when some inflatable dummies got the better of him. He'll be out for quite a while and so now Lars Unnerstall will keep the goal again. I hope Unnerstall will be able to improve on his performances as sadly he is no Manuel Neuer who was one of the main reasons for Schalke's great CL run in 2010/11.

I know about Timo , that's exactly why i was talking about the amount of luck needed in european campaigns .

That quote must be accepted by all the teams that really want to make a great run in external competitions.Manuel Neuer's departue from the club had a strong impact on Schalke's prestations.I remember him having one of his best matches (at Gelsenkirchen) in his whole career against Manchester United in 2011's UCL semis.

I don't know much about Unnerstall, but now he has the opportunity to show his goalkeeping abilities.In general best GK's exploded when they had the status of reserve at their teams.How long will Hildebrand stay away from the pitch?

Timo Hildebrand will be out for "several weeks". There is no more concise info.

Source: http://www.schalke04.de/aktuell/news-archiv/einzelansicht/artikel/timo-hildebrand-muss-mehrere-wochen-pausieren.html

Lars Unnerstall states that he will give everything to stay in the Schalke goal, now that he got another chance to impress as number one.

Source: http://www.schalke04.de/aktuell/news/einzelansicht/artikel/lars-unnerstall-werde-alles-geben-um-im-tor-zu-bleiben.html

The defense will be better this year I believe, Neustadter was an underrated pickup.

To me he's playing Holtby out of place so far, less touches tighter areas, not really the best environment for him and same for Draxler who's being given a very channeled role closer to goal.

The draxler one may eventually work out though as goalscoring ability is what will take him to the next level, but Holtby isn't a 10 to me.

Well, Lewis Holtby could play a double 8 with Ibrahim Afellay with Jeremy Jones as 6. I think that would be well worth a try.

BTW, IIRC you wondered about Holtby in the A-Nationalteam. I just found a (German language) interview with him where he said that he'd love to play for the seniors, but first he wants to win the Euro title with the U21:

http://de.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/holtby-exklusiv-keinen-fall-%C3%BCberm%C3%BCtig-101745984.html

2-0 win over Gruether.

Hoewedes the MOTM by far for saving Steven's leaky defence against numerous Gruether counter attacks. Calm, composed in the back with skill on the ball. A true leader for Schalke. Looks to be coming back into form.

Easily Germany's best defender.

Great result for Schalke but I'm pissed at Stevens for not playing Pukki. 4 competitive games played by Schalke so far and Pukki has only featured for 62 minutes in a cup game

Arquitecto wrote:2-0 win over Gruether.

BTW, a little Bundesliga knowledge: If you want to shorten SpVgg Greuther Fürth, better use just "Fürth" (or "Fuerth" if you lack the umlaut).

Greuther Fürth was created in 1996 by a fusion of SpVgg Fürth from the town Fürth and the football department of TSV Vestenbergsgreuth (the 5th division "Pokalschreck" who kicked out Bayern München in the first round of the DFB-Pokal in 1994) from the tiny village Markt Vestenbergsgreuth. So just using "Greuther" actually makes no sense. ^^

Well, I'm glad if Höwedes comes back to form. I like to see Schalke playing well after all

Good news for Schalke: Kyriakos Papadopoulos just extended his contract up to 2016!

Source: http://www.transfermarkt.de/de/offiziell-schalke-04-verlaengert-mit-papadopoulos-bis-2016-/news/anzeigen_102194.html

i thought he did that couple of months back ?

Ninis wrote:i thought he did that couple of months back ?

So far it was only talking about it and an oral agreement. But now he officially put his signature under the new contract.

Here's the article of today at the Schalke website: http://www.schalke04.de/aktuell/news/einzelansicht/artikel/die-tinte-ist-trocken-kyriakos-papadopoulos-unterschreibt-bis-2016.html

Schalke's CL match against Montpellier turned out to be costlier than just due to conceding the 2:2 draw in the last minute. Julian Draxler was fouled by Garry Bocaly in the 50th minute and broke his arm when he crashed to the ground.

Nonetheless, with his goal against the French side, Julian Draxler became the youngest German goalscorer in the Champions league with an age of just 19 years and 13 days.

So Schalke (who missed Draxler and Papa) won today's Revierderby against Dortmund (who missed 4 starters due to injuries). Huub Stevens decided to trust Lars Unnerstall, and he was rewarded.

Schalke 04:
Unnerstall
Uchida - Höwedes - Matip - Fuchs
Höger - Neustädter
Farfan - Holtby - Afellay
Huntelaar

Borussia Dortmund:
Weidenfeller
Subotic - S.Bender - Hummels
Piszczek- Kehl - Großkreutz
Leitner - Perisic
Lewandowski - Reus

0:1 - Afellay (14., Rechtsschuss)
0:2 - Höger (48., Rechtsschuss, Holtby)
1:2 - Lewandowski (55., Kopfball, Reus)

FT - Borussia Dortmund 1:2 Schalke 04








Derby win!

schalke are looking to replace the greek with a greek

supposedly papadopoulos is planning to move, i think in the summer but not sure and they may replace him with olympiakos CB and 21 years old kostas manolas

good snatch if so




tall,fast, strong, and great tackler

obviously just rumours though..

Well, from the Interviews I heard of Papa, he feels very comfortable at Schalke. I mean, he didn't just extend his contract till June 2016 without a reason. Maybe Schalke want to bolster they defense with an additional Greek defender as recently Joel Matip wasn't too convincing, and Papa likes to collect yellows ^^

What a match today! Schalke 5:4 Hannover... Truly incredible!!!

So.... With the 1:1 draw against Gala in Istanbul, Schalke kept their chances to progress to the CL quarter finals. I hope they will build on this in the return leg at home!

how the hell did matip score 2 goals? haha