Debutant Matip secures point in Munich
That Felix Magath likes to give young players a chance is common knowledge by now. And yet the Schalke manager had another surprise up his sleeve for the visit to Bayern Munich.
It is safe to say that not many coaches would dare to throw an 18-year-old into the Bundesliga deep end at the Allianz Arena. But Felix Magath did just that, helping Joel Matip to follow in the footsteps of Christoph Moritz and Lukas Schmitz and become the third Schalke prospect to make a successful first-team debut this season.
Magath also elected to rest Carlos Zambrano, allowing captain Heiko Westermann to revert to his normal position of central defender as the Peruvian dropped to the bench. The formation included three strikers on paper, with Kevin Kuranyi lurking up top and Jefferson Farfan and Vicente Sanchez in slightly more defensive roles.
The Royal Blues were untroubled in the opening stages and it was they who had the first chance of the game through Kuranyi after five minutes. But the Schalke striker was denied by the left hand of Bayern keeper Jörg Butt. After a nervous opening quarter of an hour the home side began to establish a grip on the proceedings without, however, creating any clear-cut opportunities. And so it came as something of a surprise when Daniel van Buyten gave them the lead on 31 minutes. "It was an unfortunate goal to concede", said Magath, who criticised his side for losing their way after a good start. "I don't know why we didn't carry on like that. Fortunately we scored a quick equaliser", he added, bringing us back to Joel Matip.
Two minutes before the interval the Schalke debutant flicked on a Westermann free-kick to restore parity, an occurrence of greater import for external observers than for Magath, who had been monitoring the youngster's progress with the under-19s for quite some time. "He caught our attention because he works very hard and is very disciplined", the Schalke boss explained. The rangy Matip (1.93 m) had played for the first team in training on Thursday and just two days later did what his coach expected of him. "I was told to step on it and do my job", the 18-year-old explained succinctly.
In the second half Bayern pressed for a winner, while Schalke were forced to reshuffle, not only after the loss of right-back Rafinha to injury in the 70th minute. "That was one reason why we were unable to hold our own in the way we wanted", explained Magath, though overall his team was very solid and restricted Bayern to very few chances. "Nevertheless we didn't offer enough attacking resistance", he added. In a hard-fought game Holland international Arjen Robben sparked pandemonium on 56 when he retaliated to a foul by barging Lukas Schmitz to the ground with his chest, though referee Florian Meyer showed both players a yellow card and left it at that.
After the final whistle Bayern boss Louis van Gaal bemoaned not only the chances his side had squandered but also those they had failed to create. "We dominated the game but we're lacking chances." Magath, on the other hand, called it "a very good result". After a run of three wins and three draws the Royal Blues now enter the two-week international break before resuming their Bundesliga campaign with a home fixture against Hannover 96 on Saturday, 21 November (1530 CET).
Bayern: Butt - Lahm, Van Buyten, Demichelis, Badstuber (Altintop 64') - Tymoshchuk, Van Bommel, Schweinsteiger - Müller - Toni (Robben 46'), Klose (Gomez 75')
Schalke: Neuer - Höwedes (Zambrano 46'), Westermann, Bordon, Schmitz - Rafinha (Mineiro 70'), Matip, Moritz - Farfan, Kuranyi, Sanchez (Pliatsikas 54')
Goals: 1-0 Van Buyten (31'), 1-1 Matip (43')
Referee: Meyer (Burgdorf)
Attendance: 69,000 (sold out)
Yellow cards: Robben, Schweinsteiger (4) - Sanchez, Kuranyi, Zambrano (5), Schmitz
