FC Schalke 04 underlined in the away game at Fortuna Füsseldorf why coach Miron Muslic’s team is leaders in the 2nd league.
The FC Schalke 04 is simply unstoppable in the second division this season. Coach Miron Muslic’s team sat down on Friday evening (December 5th, 2025). Fortuna Dusseldorf deservedly won 2-0 (1-0) and are at least five points ahead of the competition as league leaders overnight.
Kenan Karaman (45.+2) and Vitalie Becker (81.) scored the goals of the evening for the Royal Blues in the Düsseldorf stadium. It was the eleventh win this season and the fourth away win.
“We had to invest a lot. In the first half we deservedly took the lead. In the second half we had really good moments. Then we made it 2-0 and then the game is usually over,” said S04 coach Muslic to ARD.
Düsseldorf discussions
The Düsseldorf team, who started the season as candidates for promotion, are slipping further and further towards the relegation zone. The crisis under coach Markus beginning continues. In the seventh second division game under his responsibility, the new defeat was already the fifth defeat with one win and one draw.
The discussions about the former professional footballer are likely to gain momentum in the coming days. “We have shown that we can keep up. But we just don’t score. Schalke scores goals with two throw-ins. We know the problem, we can’t push the problem away. If you relate that to the results, the criticism is justified,” said Fortuna coach at the beginning of the ARD.
Muslija loses her nerve
Both teams worked at each other in the first few minutes without anything worth mentioning happening in front of either goal. After eight minutes, the Düsseldorf team had their first dangerous approach to the goal. Florent Muslija had a lot of space on the right side, striker Cedric Itten missed his cross into the Schalke penalty area by just centimeters.
Schalke waited and hoped for Fortuna to make a mistake. However, the Muslic team made some lapses in defense. And the S04 were lucky that Fortuna offensive player Florent Muslija completely lost his nerve in front of the S04 goalkeeper Loris Karius and shot the ball almost steeply over the goal (17th).
Great support for Schalke
Schalke remained extremely cautious when it came to offense, paying particular attention to keeping the hosts as far away from their own goal as possible. The approximately 20,000 Schalke supporters really liked the performance of their favorite team and their support was correspondingly loud. After 31 minutes, S04 had their first opportunity to score.
Kenan Karaman started with the ball on the left corner of the penalty area, moved a few meters into the middle and then flicked the ball to the far corner. Fortuna goalkeeper Florian Kastenmeier had to stretch very far to parry the ball. However, the more active team in the first half was the Düsseldorf team, who too often lacked accuracy with the last pass.
Karaman scores
Schalke continued undeterred and were awarded a penalty by referee Felix Prigan just before half-time. After a long throw-in from Christopher Antwi-Adjei, Tim Oberdorf tried to clear the ball with his foot at Nikola Katic’s head height, but the Düsseldorf defender hit the Schalke central defender in the temple. Captain Karaman was somewhat lucky to convert the penalty – Kastenmeier still had his fingers on the ball – to make it 1-0 (45th + 2).
Just two minutes later, Becker had Schalke’s second goal on his feet; Kastenmeier was just able to parry the long-range shot from 18 meters.
Oberdorf sees yellow-red
The Schalke team, with Bryan Lasme coming on as a substitute at half-time for the health-impaired Karaman, quickly tried to add a second goal. Suddenly the Muslic team acted much more aggressively and dominated the game. And Fortuna then weakened itself. After a foul on Antwi-Adjei, Oberdorf saw yellow-red and Fortuna had to continue playing outnumbered from the 55th minute.
The Düsseldorf team mobilized all their strength in the remaining minutes and tried to act on an equal footing with Schalke. They even had two good chances to score through substitute attacker Christian Rasmussen, but the Dane missed the S04 goal in both attempts (72′; 75′).
Becker with his first goal
The best defense in the league, Schalke only conceded eight goals, also became an almost impenetrable bulwark for Düsseldorf. And then the Royal Blues also had their feared counterattacks in their repertoire.
After losing the ball, Christian Gomis, who had been substituted a few seconds earlier and had been injured for a long time, served Becker, who was running with him, who scored the 2-0 and at the same time his first goal for the S04 alone in front of Kastenmeier. After that the game was decided.
