A dream goal in front of the Nordkurve: Marius Bülter on one aim, two goals and three points

“For a striker, it’s always a great feeling to score,” said Bülter, who finally managed to score in front of the Nordkurve – something he had been wishing for. Three of his previous four goals this season have been at the VELTINS-Arena, but all of them at the other end of the pitch. Even more important to the centre-forward than his goalscoring record, however, is the success of the team. “After the last few weeks, the win did us a lot of good. If you look at the table, you can see how close things are in the top half, so it was really important for us to get the three points.”

Self-criticism after wasted chance

Schalke could have taken the lead in the first half but let multiple promising chances go begging. Bülter himself missed a good opportunity after eight minutes. “In the first 20 minutes we should have taken the lead, and I had a good chance myself. I’m critical of myself, as I didn’t do well enough in that situation,” said the goalscorer.

After the change of ends, the home side did better in front of goal, even though they went a goal down fairly quickly. “We stayed calm after they scored and didn’t let it put us off,” Bülter explained, saying that their belief in their own quality didn’t dwindle. “We created a lot of good chances over the 90 minutes, but after half time we also took advantage of them.”

Simon Terodde, Bülter’s regular strike partner, did not play. The top all-time goalscorer in Bundesliga 2 missed out due to a muscle injury. “We’re all hoping that Simon will be fit again soon,” said the 28-year-old. “He is an important player for the team, not only because of his goals. But I think we did well against Sandhausen even without Simon, and we dealt with his absence well as a team.”

Praise for Marvin Pieringer

Marvin Pieringer lined up next to Bülter in place of the injured Terodde. Our number eleven praised Pieringer: “Marvin played well. He works hard in every training session and in the past few weeks has given us energy from the bench.”

Bülter doesn’t know who will line up in attack in their next match against FC St. Pauli. “I’m really looking forward to the game at the Millerntor. It’ll be good.” The forward is also excited about the other two games before the winter break. “They will be great games against quality teams. We want to get as many points as possible against St. Pauli, Nürnberg and Hamburg. It will come down to the small details in those games so we can’t make many mistakes and we will have to take our chances.” Bülter is confident that they can do that with the momentum gained from the Sandhausen win. “I believe in us,” he said to finish with.