Hertha striker Wilfried Kanga shot Schalke 04 to the bottom of the table with his first Bundesliga goal. Hertha BSC managed the first home win of the season and defeated the Gelsenkirchen team, coached by interim coach Matthias Kreutzer, 2-1 (0-0) on Sunday evening at the end of the eleventh Bundesliga matchday.
In front of 60,165 spectators in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, Lucas Tousart (49th minute) gave the hosts the lead. Kanga (88th) secured the victory for the capital club shortly before the end with huge cheers.
Six losses in a row
For Schalke, for whom Florent Mollet (85th) had scored late to equalize, it was the sixth competitive defeat in a row. The team slipped to last place after the previous bottom-placed VfL Bochum beat leaders Union Berlin (2-1). The Hertha team under Sandro Schwarz, on the other hand, scored again after five games without a win and jumped to 13th place.
The promoted team from Gelsenkirchen parted ways with Kramer on Wednesday after just four months after a poor start to the season and the significant cup defeat in Hoffenheim. The search for a coach continues. “It’s a process,” said sports director Rouven Schröder at DAZN before the game. A new head coach is to be presented in the new week.
Kreutzer was very self-confident and addressed all the important things very directly, praised Schröder. The 39-year-old, who says he has no ambitions to become the boss, made five changes to the team compared to the cup game. Schalke has had a lot of failures, especially on the defensive.
There was one special returnee for the Berliners: Jean-Paul Boëtius was back in the squad just a few weeks after his testicular cancer operation, but did not start. Black opted for a two-forward formation. In addition to Stevan Jovetic, Wilfried Kanga also started from the start.
The new offensive forces drew attention to themselves. Schalke’s Marius Bülter, one of the five newcomers, scored the supposed lead for the miners with a great direct acceptance in the 15th minute. However, after a review by the video referee, the goal was disallowed for an offside position. The 29-year-old ex-Unioner shot the ball into the goal again for six minutes, but it was offside again.
At Hertha, Kanga had good opportunities early on (2nd and 5th), but the 24-year-old was initially unsuccessful in the final, as in the weeks before. Jovetic was put in the perfect finishing position by winger Dodi Lukebakio in the 26th minute, but failed to get the ball on goal from five yards out.
Mollet hits from 16 meters
Both teams played forward, it was an open encounter. Shortly after the half-time break, Tousart tried a long-range shot from around 25 meters after a nice chest attack. Hertha loan Alexander Schwolow, who hasn’t always looked happy in recent weeks, didn’t really fend off the tight but centrally shot ball. He bounced off his body into the goal.
As a result, both teams often did not finish their attacks consistently enough. Substitute Marco Richter missed for Hertha from an acute angle (70th), before things got turbulent. Substitute Frenchman Mollet made the Schalke fans cheer with his goal from 16 meters and hoped for a point win. Just three minutes later, Kanga successfully completed a counterattack.
