Home win against Münster
© Imago
In the 1-0 of FC Schalke against Prussia Münster, Loris Karius celebrated his comeback in German professional football after four years. With several parades, his team’s 31 -year -old goalkeeper secured three points in the fight for relegation and received praise from his coach Kees van Wonderen.
The Dutch spoke of a “difficult decision” at the press conference after the game. Justin Heekeren had made some uncertainties in the past few weeks, so Van Wonderen had decided that Karius will be in goal against Münster. “The goalkeeper was also a difference today,” was his conclusion after the game.
It was not a matter of course that Karius made a convincing debut for the royal blue. After all, he only brought it to two missions in the last three and a half years and, after his end of the contract at Newcastle United, “had no team for half a year with which he could play and train. Then playing such a first game is important for him too, ”said van Wonderen. In terms of market value, Karius recently had the tenth minus since its maximum in summer 2018 when he was rated 12 million euros as a Liverpool goalkeeper.
At Schalke debut: Karius had to “find his rhythm”
Karius played his last game on February 24, 2024 against Arsenal (1: 4). “If you haven’t played for so long, you have to find your rhythm again,” said the former U21 national goalkeeper after the game at “Sky”. “It was decent for a debut. It is always good for a goalkeeper if it can be distinguished. But in the end I stood in the goal. “
With 43 goals, Schalke, after the bottom of Jahn Regensburg and Greuther Fürth, places the weakest defensive in the 2nd Bundesliga. After Heekeren and Ron-Thorben Hoffmann, Karius is the third goalkeeper of the narrow this season. It was only the fourth time that the Schalke back team stayed without a goal – most recently at 0-0 against Eintracht Braunschweig in January.