Nothing but praise for the match winner

„I rarely single a player out, and I don’t like to either, but Weston was outstanding today,“ said Christian Heidel: „I’m extremely pleased for him that he scored the winner and gave the team their reward as well.“

Schalke’s sporting director had foreseen that McKennie could be the deciding protagonist in the RZD Arena: „You could see during the game that Weston was jumping to win all the defensive headers,“ said Heidel: „He did fantastically well to score at the end.“

The goal did not come as a huge surprise to Domenico Tedesco either. „Weston might not be the tallest guy, but he’s got excellent heading accuracy and a great leap,“ said the head coach, praising his midfielder. The goalscorer himself described this as „one of the biggest moments in my career so far. It’s a dream come true even playing in the Champions League, scoring was indescribable.“

Eluding the opposition at set-pieces

Weston McKennie’s goal was not entirely down to good timing, but also an external advantage: „It may have helped that most defenders are concerned with Salif Sané and Naldo at set-pieces, because of their height,“ he explained.

Mark Uth also had his say: „Weston was the best player on the pitch in the second half!“ Naldo was as pleased as anyone for the goalscorer, explaining that „Weston works hard to improve every single day. You can see in his performances that he’s made a lot of progress, and now he’s rewarded himself with a goal. He’s an important part of this team.“

The celebrations that followed the winner were like the welcome ceremony from the film ‘Black Panther’, but that wasn’t the intention. „Salif and I say hello with that handshake almost every day so we just did it after the goal as well,“ McKennie reported, who quickly turned his attention to the coming tasks after full time. „It all goes so quickly; we already have to think about the next game.“ A repeat of Wednesday night would be more than welcome when Schalke travel to Düsseldorf on Saturday. „I am pumped for the game. We definitely have room for improvement in the Bundesliga.“