A right-footed rarity for Bastian Oczipka

“If someone had predicted that a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believed them,” said the 29-year-old, who hadn’t played since the final day of last season. He had to undergo a groin operation in the summer after playing through the pain barrier for much of last season.

“It was a tough time but it’s behind me. The boys were training on the pitch and I had to train alone without being able to help the team,” said Oczipka. He’s happy that this difficult time is now in the past: “I’ve got 100% trust in my body once again. The friendly against Zenit a week ago helped with that. That game was important for me. It was important for my body, but for my head above all,” added the former Frankurt defender, who played the full 90 minutes on his comeback.

His last right-footed effort is on YouTube

“I’m very happy that we won. The fact that I scored was obviously the icing on the cake on a really special day for me. It was with my strong right foot, too,” he laughed. Oczipka’s goal yesterday wasn’t his first in the Bundesliga, but it was his first with his right foot. “I scored a similar goal for Bayer Leverkusen against Bayern Munich at U19 level in 2007. That’ll have been the last with my right foot,” added the defender, who says that you can find the goal on YouTube.

Oczipka also believes it wasn’t a coincidence that Schalke scored five against Nürnberg despite only scoring eight times all season before the game. “After a lot of mid-week fixtures, we finally had some time to work on our game. You could see some things we’d worked on in the past couple of weeks in the goals that we scored. With wins like that, you have to take things step by step,” said the defender, who believes that even though the performance wasn’t perfect, Schalke are on the right track.

The team also showed their togetherness at half time: “Naldo said a few motivational words and said that we had to be braver. Even when he’s not playing, his words mean a lot to us. Naldo has a massive role in the team,” said Oczipka.

No Champions League action for now

Schalke don’t have must time to rest, with their next Champions League group game coming on Wednesday at Porto. However, Oczipka won’t be playing in the game as he’s not named in the Royal Blues’ Champions League squad. “The club had to submit a list in the summer, but I was left out because of my groin injury. It’s a shame, but it’s completely understandable, because I wasn’t 100% certain to be fit for the group stage. If I hadn’t returned until December, I would have taken up a place, so the club made the right decision. I’m fully convinced that we’ll progress to the last 16 and I’ll be involved again,” said Oczipka.

However, the defender will still make the trip to Portugal: “Of course. Even if I can’t play, I’ll still support the boys off the pitch.”