Clinically dead after half an hour, but at the end of a football spectacle with heart and pain but back among the living: Schalke 04 celebrated its resurrection with great emotions. “We have to suck it up,” said match winner Sebastian Polter after the wild 4:3 (1:2) home win of the badly relegated Bundesliga team against 1. FC Magdeburg, “because we haven’t had that yet this season.”
Not even for a while: The Royal Blues last overturned a 2-0 deficit in a 3-2 win against FC St. Pauli in May 2022 – at their last promotion party. Polter and Co. are still a long way from getting there. It is rather questionable whether they will be allowed to celebrate next spring. Nevertheless, the mood among 61,755 spectators in the Schalke Arena was similarly agitated. Because the still young season could have been in ruins after just six games.
“The victory feels brutally good,” said midfielder Paul Seguin on Sky. And coach Thomas Reis, already criticized after the false start with only one win from the first five rounds, said with a mixture of defiance and relief: “We were accused of many things. Today we saw that the team is fine. “
Langer “like a young god”
However, if Schalke’s oldest second division player in the club’s history hadn’t scratched the ball off the line in the 106th minute of the game, the accusations would have become louder again. The 38-year-old Michael Langer, actually the fourth goalkeeper, came onto the field in place of Marius Müller, who had been substituted in tears, and held on to the victory in stoppage time – “like a young god,” as double goalscorer Polter enthused.
Schalke had looked very old in the first 30 minutes when the strong Magdeburgers overturned the simple Reis tactics and were on their way to the top of the table after a brace from Silas Gnaka (16th/27th). Mistakes by the guests allowed Polter (40th) and Derry John Murkin (62nd) to equalize and “bring a dead team back into the game,” as former Schalke player Luca Schuler said. After falling behind again thanks to Gelsenkirchen native Connor Krempicki (67′), the “flight forward” (Polter) and the force of the crowd carried the Royal Blues to victory thanks to Thomas Owejan’s free kick (69′) and Polter’s penalty kick (79′).
Playful class, tactical order? Still missing – even in the majority after red for Daniel Heber (77th). The crisis with the relegated team has at best been interrupted, but is far from over. And Reis is still under pressure, even though sports director Andre Hechelmann had already promised a job guarantee for the coach before the spectacle.