FC Schalke 04 won

FC Schalke won against 1899 Hoffenheim on Saturday evening. This headline would not be strange if the year was 2018 or earlier. They regularly played in European competitions finishing some of the previous seasons in top 6 position in the German Bundesliga. The team used to be respectable and always in the top half of the table.

Then, something happened with them. They fall into rather awful form. Before the win against 1899 Hoffenheim, Schalke won the last match in the season 2019/2020. It was January 17, 2020 (Round 18) when they played against Borussia M’Gladbach. Yes, you read well, it was almost a year ago since Schalke won a game in the Bundesliga. Luckily for them, in the 18 round of Bundesliga in the previous season they won 9 games which secure them to stay in Bundesliga and not to drop in Bundesliga 2. In the remaining 16 rounds of the German championship, Schalke lost 10 times and play draw for 6 times. Rather unpleasant record, not to win in 30 consecutive games.

So, on Saturday evening Schalke finally won. The opponent was 1899 Hoffenheim, the team that is not currently playing well but anyway, the team that qualified for the Europa League knockout phase. The final result was 4:0. Young Mathew Hoppe scored hat-trick on this match. Being only 19 years old, he became the youngest American player to ever score the hat-trick in the Bundesliga.

However, the season 2020/20201 did not start well either for Schalke. They played 15 games, where they lost 10 times, 4 times it was draw and they won only one game, against Hoffenheim. They are currently 1 point above Mainz 05 who holds the last position in Bundesliga Table.

We will see if this victory is a sign that Schalke is waking up or if it was just one twitch of the team from Gelsenkirchen.