Season ends with 2-1 defeat at home against Elversberg

Seven players say farewell to the club

Mehmet Can Aydin, Marcin Kaminski, Tobias Mohr, Michael Langer, Ralf Fährmann, Dominick Drexler and Aymen Barkok, who will all depart the club at the end of the season upon the expiry of their contracts, all said farewell to the fans around 45 minutes before the game. S04’s CEO Matthias Tillmann and director for professional football Youri Mulder handed them all individual collages displaying their time at the club.

Jakob Fimpel made two changes to the team from last weekend. Mehmet Can Aydin and Adrian Gantenbein replaced Christopher Antwi-Adjei and Amin Younes, who both dropped to the bench. After training with the first team all week, Pierre-Michel Lasogga and Yassin Ben Balla, normally part of Schalke’s U23 side, were both named in a first-team squad for the first time. They each came off the bench in the second half.

Petkov puts the visitors 1-0 up

Although both teams looked to attack in the opening stages, it took until 16 minutes for the first shot of the game. Semih Sahin rifled the ball home from around 25 yards out, leaving Justin Heekeren with no chance in the Schalke goal. The goal didn’t stand in the end though, with VAR advising referee Robert Hartmann that Lukas Petkov was offside in the build-up.

Elversberg did take the lead shortly after Sahin’s disallowed goal and it was Petkov who got it. The Bulgarian international received the ball from Fisnik Asllani outside the box, shifted it onto his left foot and fired it home underneath the crossbar (20’). Schalke’s first decent opportunity came five minutes after Petkov’s opener: captain Kenan Karaman shot over from the edge of the box after a pass from Moussa Sylla.

Fisnik Asllani had a chance to make it 2-0 for Elversberg in the 27th minute. After collecting a pass from former Schalke man Maurice Neubauer in the box, his attempt at the near post went just wide. At the other end, Derry John Murkin won back the ball in the final third, drove forward and then missed the target with his shot (29’). Tobias Mohr was closer to scoring in the 40th minute, as his delivery flew just past the far post following a short corner.

Ron Schallenberg almost unluckily scored an own goal two minutes later. He looked to clear a Petkov cross but only kicked the ball against his goalkeeper Justin Heekeren, before then clearing it properly himself. After Kenan Karaman’s powerful header from a free-kick was beaten away by SVE goalkeeper Nicolas Kristof, Fisnik Asllani took the ball round Justin Heekeren in the box but waited too long to shoot and Taylan Bulut was able to tackle him in the end (45’+2).

Ben Balla heads in from a corner

Elversberg doubled their advantage less than two minutes after the restart. A long ball by Lukas Petkov found Maurice Neubauer at the far post. He let the ball bounce once and then hammered it across Heekeren into the far corner on his left foot.

SVE continued to press forward in search of more goals and had the ball in the back of the net again in the 49th minute. However, Fisnik Asllani’s goal didn’t count as he was clearly offside when he received the ball. The Hoffenheim loanee was again in the spotlight 15 minutes later, racing clean through on goal before being denied by Justin Heekeren. The assistant referee put his flag up for offside again, though had the ball gone in VAR may have taken a closer look at it.

Schalke at least managed a few good attacks late on: substitute Pierre-Michel Lasogga got his head on a high ball in the 73rd minute but couldn’t divert it on target. Yassin Ben Balla, another substitute who usually plays for the club’s reserves, did find the back of the net with five minutes left. The midfielder got to Amin Younes’ corner before goalkeeper Kristof and headed home at the near post. That was to be the final goal of the game, meaning the visitors were able to confirm a third-place finish and their participation in the relegation play-off next week.

First friendly to take place in Nordhorn

The start for pre-season will be confirmed by the club in due course. The first friendly ahead of the 2025/26 season will take place on Saturday, 28th June at 16:00 CEST in Nordhorn against the ‘Best of Grafschaft’ team, made up of several players from various different clubs from the Grafschaft Bentheim area.