Schalke 1-2 Werder Bremen (2018)

Schalke 1-2 Werder Bremen
Bundesliga
Saturday 3rd February 2018

When it comes to foreign languages, it's no small understatement to say that I'm not an expert on German/Deutsch.

I only understand a few basic phrases and one of them 'Schizer, Schalke' got muttered quite a few times at this match by disgruntled home supporters unhappy that their side had succumbed to defeat against relegation-threatened opponents

Schalke are located in Gelsenkirchen - a small-mining town not far away from Dortmund.

Their plush stadium 'Arena Auf Schalke' (now called the Veltins Arena under sponsorship reasons) was state-of-the-art when it opened its doors for the 2001/02 season. The pitch is kept outside so it can get as much natural sunlight as possible, then wheeled in under one of the stands on matchdays whilst the space outside is then used as a car park. It's also one of the few stadiums in Europe to have a retractable roof - though it wasn't used for this game.

It's where England crashed out of the World Cup on penalties to Portugal in a game where the little winker, Cristiano Ronaldo, baited Wayne Rooney enough to get him red carded even though they were club team-mates at that time. It's also where, two years previously, Jose Mourinho's Porto thrashed Monaco in the UEFA Champions League Final.

I'd booked the trip here going the 'long way' - that being an overnight coach trip from London to Dortmund on the Friday night into the Saturday morning, followed by a return journey around 12 hours later. There wasn't much scope if things went wrong but thankfully they didn't and I arrived in Dortmund in good time, around 9.00am.

Gelsenkirchen is around an half-hour train trip from Dortmund (at worst) and it went smoothly. Having arrived there at the Main Hauptbahnhof, a quick change was needed to get on a tram that went all the way to the Arena Auf Schalke which is around seven kilometres away on the northern outskirts of the town/city.

Schalke fans are very proud of both their football team and their heritage - paying tribute to it with several montages of 'miners' which appeared on the big screens during the pre-match build up. Despite a population of just over a quarter of a million (comparable to Derby or Portsmouth in England) they regularly get 50,000+ in attendance and this particular afternoon was no different. One of their 'anthems' was a re-working of Mike Oldfield's 'Moonlight Shadow' from way back - popularised, in part, during their UEFA Cup triumph in 1997.

Sadly, the hosts failed to deliver a performance on the pitch to both warm the hearts of the home faithful or get them singing as, instead, they were sluggish, lethargic and weren't able to take advantage of the good position which they'd got themselves into at half-time.

Nabil Bentaleb set-up for Yevgen Konoplyanka for the opening goal midway through the first half, but Bremen 'dug in' and kept their shape pretty well before they eventually began to turn the balance of the game in their favour after the re-start. Max Kruse's equaliser with less than 15 minutes to go had Schalke fans muttering with discontent and their misery got a whole lot worse when Zlatko Junuzovic smashed in a dramatic winner for Bremen deep into injury-time.

'Schizer, Schalke' was an appropriate phrase to describe the performance!