Kees van Wonderen imagined his debut at Schalke 04 differently. After the 0-1 defeat, the coach asked for time, “which we don’t have.”
Kees van Wonderen gathered his players together immediately, still on the pitch at the Hannover stadium, the new FC Schalke 04 coach called his team together more to cheer them up than to analyze the game.
The Royal Blues had previously failed to help Karel Geraerts’ successor make a successful debut in the 2nd Bundesliga. “It’s disappointing that we couldn’t get a good result,” said van Wonderen after the 0-1 (0-1) defeat at Hannover 96, who had proved to be a strong opponent at home, as expected.
Viewed somewhat cynically, one could say that Kees van Wonderen has arrived at Schalke in fast forward. The Royal Blues were unable to mount any kind of offensive play and only managed to get a few shots on goal in the final stages. “We defended well for long periods,” said goalkeeper Ron-Thorben Hoffmann, who was making his second division debut for Schalke, adding that “we tried something up front in the closing stages. But we can’t have our first shot on goal in the 80th minute.”
Schalke’s offensive weakness was quickly brought home to Kees van Wonderen. ”We’re playing in Hanover, which is a good team with the fewest goals conceded; they’re very well organized. You can’t change all that in seven or eight days,” said the 55-year-old Dutchman, adding: ‘It was our first game, we need time – which we don’t have. That’s not meant to be an excuse, but I’m not Harry Potter. We have to work on it, we need to communicate, but we also need to gain experience, bang our heads against the wall’ and learn from it.
Schalke conceding a goal from a set piece is one of the rarities of this season so far. “The defender must always be first to the near post,” said van Wonderen about the rehearsed move that Fabian Kunze had already exploited in the fourth minute to score the winning goal for Hannover. In any case, he said he was “not worried at all” about the team’s attitude. Van Wonderen: “Everything is there.”