week 11 - match report

Ten men rally to win 2-0 in Cottbus

Schalke kept their nerve and patience to record their second away win in four days with a 2-0 success at Energie Cottbus.

The Royal Blues were forced to play with ten men for almost 40 minutes after the referee adjudged Orlando Engelaar's gesture towards linesman Norbert Grudzinski to be unsportsmanlike and sent him off. "That wasn't very clever of Orlando", said Fred Rutten after the game. "There are certainly more serious situations in a game, albeit not today, and in Holland he'd have been shown a yellow card. But in Germany they pay more attention to gestures like that. It should never have happened."

Up to that point the Royal Blues had tried in vain to break down the packed Cottbus rearguard. The home side threw up a defensive wall around their penalty area, rather like a handball team. As a result there was little goalmouth action to speak of. Albert Streit did put the ball in the ball in the net on 31, but was narrowly offside. "In the first half we were able to match Schalke's quality, which wasn't easy", said Cottbus coach Bojan Prasnikar.

And after Engelaar's sending-off it looked for a while as if the home side might snatch a win. Substitute Emil Jula had a number of shots on goal and forced a good save from Manuel Neuer on 68. Yet their attacking efforts were to prove deceptive. "After the red card we were too casual", felt Prasnikar. "We responded very well to the red card. We stepped up the pace and adopted a high-risk strategy with three strikers, which ultimately brought us the win", said Rutten.

The Dutchman signalled his tactical intentions with his substitutions. Jefferson Farfan, initially rested due to an ankle injury and replaced by Albert Streit, came on with an hour gone and soon livened things up. And ultimately the Royal Blues were able to rely on their strength from set pieces, Heiko Westermann heading them in front from Farfan's free-kick ten minutes from time. "We knew we had to be patient and our chances would come", said the central defender after his fourth league goal of the season.

In the closing stages Cottbus went out looking for an equaliser, but it was Schalke who had the chances. After Rafinha and Kobiashvili had missed two good opportunities Farfan saw his penalty saved by Tremmel in the 90th minute. But the Peruvian converted the rebound to seal the win with the club's 2000th Bundesliga goal. "After going down to ten men we'd have been satisfied with a point", said Rutten. "But after two difficult away wins we have every reason to be happy."

Cottbus: Tremmel - Pavicevic, Kukielka, Cagdas, Ziebig - Kurth, Rost - Rivic (Jelic 83'), Skela - Shao (Jula 59'), Sorensen (Vasiljevic 88')
Schalke: Neuer - Rafinha, Bordon, Westermann, Kobiashvili - Jones, Engelaar - Rakitic (Ernst 68') - Streit (Asamoah 88'), Kuranyi, Altintop (Farfan 61')
Goals: 0-1 Westermann (80'), 0-2 Farfan (90')
Referee: Weiner (Giesen)
Attendance: 16,640
Red card: Engelaar (unsportsmanlike conduct 52')
Yellow cards: Rivic, Ziebig - Rafinha (4), Westermann, Ernst (2)