1. Hannover (away) 2. Bayern Munich 3. Gladbach (away) 4. Frankfurt 5. Bremen (away) 6. Dortmund 7. Hoffenheim (away) 8. Hertha Berlin 9. Leverkusen (away) 10. Augsburg 11. Freiburg (away) 12. Wolfsburg 13. Mainz 14. Stuttgart (away) 15. Koln 16. Paderborn (away) 17. Hamburg
Tough start to the season, easier schedule towards the end. It will be interesting to see how Schalke fares this season.
Start could be as bad as the last season. I only hope everybody keeps calm even if we lose the first three matches. Even the Cup game is not a given. Dresden at home is a pretty tough draw for the first round.
I was just going to post this. http://www.derwesten.de/sport/bitter-fuer-schalke-farfan-faellt-monatelang-aus-id9543625.html Several months could be until the end of August, or it could be October/November. Thankfully we'll have some cover, but it sounds like selling Farfan is a no-go.
Adding Sam and probably EMCM take the sting out of Farfan's loss. It is still bitter because it is an old injury from last season. Farfan wanted to try healing it without surgery, even took a physio with him on vacation. Sucks that didn't work. You think Heldt could be interested in Yedlin? I liked his speed and his crosses.
Yedlin would be an outside back project. He certainly has potential to be good enough for Schalke, but I think we'd have to loan him out for a year or two. Although maybe as a backup he'd be serviceable. The player I was really impressed by today was Mehmedi. Frieburg certain are good at nurturing players with good potential.
I didn't watch much of the other game. Mehmedi is already 23 and was very expensive for Freiburg. The usually don't pay that much. Doubt there is much point in loaning Yedlin. He would have trouble breaking our team now. If you are interested in him, it has to be longer term, including possible loan spells at lesser clubs in Europe. Yedlin is already somewhat old for that at 20.
Just so that everybody knows, practice started at July 1st so we're already a couple of days in the new season. I've read some posts of people watching the first sessions: Papa apparently isn't fully fit yet and favors his knee. That is not good considering that this atheticism and physicality are his biggest strengths but it is still very early pre-season. Sanata hasn't "lost" anything on this touch. blech. Kirchhoff looks excellent. Fuchs is still not able to participate in team exercises but does individual training with one of the physios. I do wonder if Kirchhoff could solve our problems in central defense instead of defensive midfield. He looked to me very fast and a good passer in the last couple of games in the season. These are both major weakness' in Höwedes. I'm not suggesting that Benedikt should be benched in favor of Kirchhoff but I would like to see a couple of games with Kirchhoff and Matip as the central pairing in the backline just to see what we have here.
Schalke won their opening friendly 5-0 against Westfalenliga club TuS Hordel. Goals by Sam (12), Höger (20), Avdijaj (43), Obasi (55th, penalty), & Borgmann (77). Notables: Clemens, Kirchoff, and Höger featured in the starting lineup, while Papadopolous played in second half. Some bad news though as Goretzka suffered a muscle tear in his left thigh and will be out for several weeks.
Farfan will be out for at least 4 months. This means that Clemens will now likely stay with Schalke. He'll be Sam's main backup on the right side, and should see more playing time in the rotation.
Schalke played their second friendly match, winning 7-0 against a selection of players in the Hochsauerlandkreis area on Thursday evening. It was a nice festive atmosphere in front of fans at Arnsberg. Several youth players got a chance to play; Friedrich, Borgmann, Ayhan, Hodja, Sobottka, Itter, Avdijaj. Play was suspended though at the 75th min due to a coming storm. Goals by: Meyer (2’), Obasi (20’), Höger (24’), Höger (34’), Meyer (55’), Avdijaj (65’), Avdijaj (75’)
http://www.schalke04.de/de/aktuell/news/140716_clemens/page/4035--10-213-.html Interview with Christian Clemens about his return from injury, summer training, and looking forward to the new season. Main points: What was your program during the summer break? I have a lot of training, I haven't really had vacation. For conditioning, I have worked very hard, but I still have to catch up a bit. It has been also noted in the first two test matches that something is still missing. I now need a bit of practice to quickly regain it. But I am confident that I will succeed. In the previous test matches you have held various positions. Sometimes playing defense or offense... We wanted to try testing, also because I myself had the idea maybe to play defense. Let's see what will happen. On the offensive reigns in our squad, of course, a larger competition, but Atsuto Uchida has proved in the past season and at the World Cup that he is very strong on the defensive. But competition is one that ensures that no one can rest. I like to take this on.
Keller is playing with the idea of using Clemens as a rightback. Don't if he could grow into the position but there have been some examples of attacking players moving to the back, f.e. Piscezck, Großkreutz, Durm, Fuchs or even Jones (though he moved to central midfield).
Clemens' speed, and crossing would provide good width in support moving forward. Though he'll need to work on the defensive aspect of playing right back. I still think he's better suited as an attacking wide midfielder. Choupo-Moting first practice with the team
Probably not interesting to most, but I thought I'd post it http://www.goal.com/en-za/news/4633...ns-arsenal-ac-milan-and-psg-as-huawei-partner Chinese telecommunications specialist Huawei has signed its latest soccer partnership, agreeing a deal to become a premium partner of Bundesliga club FC Schalke 04. The deal will see Huawei work with Schalke to improve connectivity at the Veltins Arena, where Schalke play. The company will have space on stadium LEDs and sponsor backboards. Sponsors.de said the deal was likely worth over €1 million.
For those that want to watch, our test match with Rostock tomorrow is at 11:45 EDT (10:45 Central) on Sport1, which can be watched using zattoo.com and a VPN. So if you have access to a VPN with servers in Germany, you can watch the match. Without a VPN, I imagine it would be difficult. If you're looking for a reputable free VPN, there are a few out there. Cyber ghost is one that has servers in Germany. It might be worth it to look into a free VPN, because most of our test matches are normally on Sport1.
I like that move a lot for Clemens, think his future as a winger at this level is limited but he's shown great workrate against the ball and running. Could be a good trio with him, Uchida and Itter all battling for the RB minutes.
So Kirchoff, Sane, Goretzka, Farfan, and Uchida are injured. Why does this team have such a problem with injuries? Almost all of these injuries seem to happen in training.