(Football news) Schalke had to come back from a goal down twice to snatch a 2-2 draw against their city rivals Borussia Dortmund in the 100th Ruhr valley derby in the Bundesliga on Saturday to subsequently end their eight match league game winning run. Dortmund suffered a Champions League round-of-16 exit at the hands of Chelsea this week and are currently on 50 points in second place with Bayern Munich moving to 52 points following a 5-3 win over Augsburg earlier.
Both sides were rueing their missed golden chances to score in the first half but the hosts, who were missing their key players in captain Marco Reus andJulian Brandt, went in front after 38 minutes. Dortmund and German defender Nico Schlotterbeck was given far too much space as he picked up the ball outside the box and drilled in from 18 metres. Schalke weren’t ready to give up as they bounced back five minutes after the restart with a Marius Buelter tap-in. It was Schalke’s first goal in the Ruhr derby since 2019.
Raphael Guerreiro restored parity for Dortmund in the 60th minute mark as he spectacularly rifled the ball into the top corner. The Royal Blues did not give up hope and levelled the scores for the second time with Kenan Karaman’s powerful header in the 79th minute as Schalke are now in 17th place but their spirited performance will surely give them confidence and it confirmed that their improving form as they stretched their unbeaten run to seven consecutive Bundesliga league matches.
“We had good parts in the first half, and had chances to score. Then we stopped doing that well in the second half and then it became wild which is what Schalke wanted,” said Dortmund coach Edin Terzic. “We know we can play good football which we showed today in the first half but we also know that we do not keep it up throughout the game.”
“In the past weeks there has been talk about how far the team is or if it is ready for the league title and we kept saying we have to remain humble. We have to keep working on our issues. We have to learn from it [the match] if we want to reach higher goals.” Terzic added.
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