week 34 - match report
Defeat to Hoffenheim a fitting end to season of woe
The VELTINS Arena video cube faithfully relayed the latest scores from around the Bundesliga grounds as this season’s thrilling championship and relegation battles headed to their conclusion. Down on the turf below, events in the Royal Blues’ home meeting with TSG 1899 Hoffenheim neatly summed up Schalke’s roller-coaster league campaign in a nutshell.
Apart from pride, the only thing at stake was which of the teams would finish seventh. The home side made the brighter start, but TSG keeper Timo Hildebrand pulled off two good saves in the second minute to deny Schalke the lead. “Yet again, we squandered a gilt-edged chance,” downcast head coach Mike Büskens lamented afterwards. His men continued to press for the opening goal, only for the honour to fall to Hoffenheim’s Demba Ba on 26 minutes. The Royal Blues produced a spirited response, turning the game on its head with two goals in the space of four minutes from Mladen Krstajic (30) and Jefferson Farfán (34). “We fought back and went in at half-time 2-1 to the good, but we’ve made life much too easy for our opponents after that,“ Büskens said in his analysis of the second period.
Four minutes after the restart, Carlos Eduardo levelled with a direct free-kick, ushering in a spell of end-to-end football. “But we gave away far too many set pieces and our finishing simply wasn’t good enough,“ the coach commented. The fact that TSG ultimately made off with all three points through Carlos Eduardo’s penalty a minute from time, earning his club seventh place in the final standings, hardly rated as a surprise at the tail end of a season in which so much has gone awry from a Schalke point of view.
“My lads were determined to win,” said Hoffenheim boss Ralf Rangnick after the final whistle. “We were really gutted about going 2-1 down after scoring the opening goal. So it’s a good victory for this young team, because they’ve finished the season well with ten points off four very decent teams.“
Naturally, both coaches had words of greeting and congratulation for newly-crowned champions Wolfsburg. Büskens went even further, congratulating “Hoffenheim, VfL Wolfsburg, and my old club Fortuna Düsseldorf, who were promoted to the second division today.“
Schalke: Neuer - Rafinha, Höwedes, Krstajic, Westermann - Jones, Engelaar (Kobiashvili 54) - Altintop (Sanchez 68), Rakitic - Farfán, Kuranyi (Asamoah 85)
Hoffenheim: Hildebrand - Beck, Vorsah, Compper, Ibertsberger - Weis, Luiz Gustavo, Groß (Fabricio 46) - Carlos Eduardo, Ba (Wellington 79), Vukcevic
Goals: 0-1 Ba (26), 1-1 Krstajic (30), 2-1 Farfán (34), 2-2 Carlos Eduardo (49), 2-3 Carlos Eduardo (89, pen)
Referee: Mr Schmidt (Stuttgart)
Attendance: 61,673 (capacity)
Yellow cards: Fabricio (2), Beck (5/4), Weis (3)
