Highest win of the season for Schalke: Koschinat's debut fails
A mishap by a Royal Blue home-grown player paved the way for FC Schalke 04's highest win of the season in the relegation battle in the Bundesliga 2 and thoroughly spoiled Uwe Koschinat's start as coach at VfL Osnabrück. Niklas Wiemann, who grew up in Schalke's youth ranks and was a member of the Royal Blues' Bundesliga squad under coach Huub Stevens in 2019, steered the ball into his own net in the 21st minute of a 4-0 (1-0) win for Schalke. The German Football League initially counted the goal not as an own goal, but for Marcin Kaminski. The less obvious 4:0 (70') was therefore deemed an own goal by Florian Kleinhansl instead of a goal by Kenan Karaman. In between, Paul Seguin (49') and Simon Terodde had added to the scoreline with a penalty (63'), which was also awarded by Wiemann.
Schalke's success at the start of the third-last matchday of the first half of the season saw them move up from the relegation zone to 15th place. More importantly, they closed the gap to tenth place to two points. And their lead over penultimate-placed Braunschweig initially grew to eight points, and that over bottom-placed Osnabrück to nine. Koschinat was presented on Thursday as the successor to the suspended promotion coach Tobias Schweinsteiger.
While the VfL coach made four changes to his team on his debut, Schalke coach Karel Geraerts made three changes after the sometimes embarrassing 3:5 in Düsseldorf. Among other things, he introduced goalscorer Terodde from the start for the first time since his debut on October 22. Schalke played with commitment but nervously and were lucky that Osnabrück were frighteningly harmless in attack. The goal immediately after the break calmed Schalke's nerves, with goalscorer Seguin kicking a corner flag in relief. After that, the hosts clearly dominated, Osnabrück surrendered.
Source: www.dpa.com