Round 2 - Preview
Cup game in Frankfurt "won't be easy", says Rangnick
On Tuesday evening (kick-off: 1930 CET) the Royal Blues face Eintracht Frankfurt away in the second round of the DFB Cup. Ahead of the game head coach Ralf Rangnick summed up the objectives as follows: "We aim to go through and we aim to go on a long cup run. We saw last year how far we can go."
Schalke went all the way to the final, eventually losing 2-1 to Bayern Munich. To get to the final again they will need to win four matches, the first of them tomorrow in Frankfurt, where the Royal Blues won 2-0 in the third round of last season's cup campaign and 1-0 in the Bundesliga at the beginning of this month.
Yet Rangnick is well aware of the home side's recent upturn in form: "Their confidence will have increased after the two wins away to Duisburg and at home against Cologne, which is why it definitely won't be an easy game."
"We need to defend as well as we did in Wolfsburg and then look to break effectively when we can ", he added, making no secret of the Schalke strategy.
Besides long-term casualties Gerald Asamoah, Mimoun Azaouagh, Simon Cziommer, Tim Hoogland, Christian Pander and Marco van Hoogdalem, Rangnick will also be without Mladen Krstajic. Young striker Joseph Laumann (meningitis) is also ruled out, while Rangnick does not expect Ebbe Sand (broken nose) to return until Saturday at the earliest.
There is also a question mark over Darío Rodriguez, who will undergo a final fitness test on Tuesday morning. Rangnick therefore named 19 players in his squad, including Hamit Altintop, who had to go off in Wolfsburg after sustaining a knock. Eighteen-year-old youth team player Sebastian Boenisch celebrates his first call-up for a competitive match, having already made several friendly appearances.
