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Karel Geraerts: If we carry on like this, we’ll be tough to beat
Following a frantic final few minutes at the VELTINS-Arena on Saturday evening (27/4), the controversial call to overturn a penalty for FC Schalke 04 proved to be a hot topic after the final whistle. Everyone involved in the game came to the conclusion, however, that the 1-1 draw between the Royal Blues and Fortuna Düsseldorf was a fair result. Karel Geraerts, Fortuna head coach Daniel Thioune and Kenan Karaman all spoke to the media after the match.
Karel Geraerts:
We played against a strong Düsseldorf side who’d won six games on the bounce before tonight. My team kept causing problems for the opposition. The boys played as a unit in a very close-fought encounter. I’m proud of this performance. If we carry on like this, we’ll be tough to beat. When all is said and done, a 1-1 draw is a good reflection of the game. Both teams had their chances. Marius Müller made some impressive saves.
As far as the penalty decision is concerned, Joshua Quarshie made contact with Assan Ouédraogo. He was held back – you can blow the whistle for that. I don’t think that the referee’s decision to award a penalty was a clear and obvious error, so VAR wasn’t necessary.
Daniel Thioune:
The draw was deserved. You can see that from the stats, even though I think that we had a slight edge in terms of the quality of our chances. Schalke have a very good goalkeeper in Marius Müller. We had trouble defending the long balls forwards to Keke Topp and Simon Terodde. I want to give credit to our centre-backs, though, who still managed to limit their chances despite the difficult circumstances.
Kenan Karaman’s goal definitely breathed some life into the game. We had to commit more after falling behind. We deserved to get the equaliser. The penalty decision in added time is definitely a tricky situation. At the end of the day, I think it was correct to overturn the penalty. I can understand why Schalke feel hard done by, but I don’t think that you should get a penalty every time there’s contact in the box.
Kenan Karaman:
We felt like we were more likely to come away with the win, but we’ll take the draw. Every point counts in our situation. We played well against a good side and almost had a massive chance to score the winner in added time. The defender made contact with Assan – sometimes that’s all it takes to stop a player from getting a shot off. It’s definitely a decision that you can talk about until the cows come home. At the end of the day, we’ve got to accept the referee’s decision. All in all, a draw is a fair result.
