Timo Becker: A 50-50 game decided by a single goal

“It was an unfortunate way to concede. I actually thought that it was a good block, then it flew past Loris and into the goal. That just happens in football,” explained Becker after the game against his former club.

The game could have gone in a completely different direction. With less than two minutes on the clock, Moussa Sylla was unmarked and one-on-one with Kiel keeper Jonas Krumrey but was too hesitant, meaning defender David Zec could steal the ball away from the S04 striker. “If you take a look at Moussa’s chance, we could’ve gone in front,” acknowledged Becker. The defender was not reproaching his teammate, though – quite the opposite. “Moussa has our full support. He’s a great guy. We’re going to work on giving him chances so he can get his confidence back. Then, he’ll be back to scoring lots of goals for us.”

Compact defence from Kiel

Schalke exerted a lot of effort over the 100 minutes of the match. Time and again, the game was played in the opposition’s half. “We penned Kiel back in their own half. With a bit more luck in a couple of moments, we could’ve gotten more from the game,” said Becker. On the other hand, he went on to mention that his former teammates had defended very compactly and adapted well to S04’s style of play. On the whole, both teams only allowed a few opportunities. “It was a 50-50 game decided by this single goal,” stressed the defender.

One thing that is especially frustrating from a Schalke perspective is the number of set pieces that were wasted. “Set pieces are one of our strengths, but that wasn’t the case on Saturday. We didn’t enter the space correctly and didn’t utilise the free kicks in such a way that we could have benefitted from them,” analysed Becker. “We’ve got to be more focused in that regard, since set pieces often decide games in the second division.”