The first half of the second division season has brought a few surprises. Schalke is one of the positive ones—thanks in part to Loris Karius.

In terms of results, things are looking up again at Schalke: Coach Miron Muslic has the team playing intense, exciting soccer—and the fans are right behind them.

The latest proof: During the 1-2 loss to Eintracht Braunschweig to close out the first half of the season, Schalke’s Ultras displayed a banner thanking the team for their performance: “Finally, the pride of the city again—thank you!”

A major factor in this success: the stabilized defense. In 17 games, the Royal Blues have conceded just ten goals. By comparison: Last season, Schalke was thirteenth in the table after the first half of the season and had conceded 33 goals—more than three times as many as they have at this point.

Loris Karius has also played a major role in this. The goalkeeper has already saved Schalke quite a few points with saves in stoppage time and secured the top spot in the clean sheet statistics. The S04 keeper has nine clean sheets to his credit.

Only Tjark Ernst of Hertha BSC can keep up with that. His move from the VfL Bochum youth team to the Berlin club in the summer of 2022 has fully paid off. Ernst is the starting goalkeeper, even though the start of the season was difficult.

Hertha picked up just two points from their first four games—not enough for the top promotion contender that Hertha BSC was before the season.

But the Berliners have pulled themselves together and, despite three consecutive games without a win before the winter break, are now back in the thick of things. From matchday 10 through 14, Ernst even kept a clean sheet.

Incidentally, with seven clean sheets, Elversberg’s Nicolas Kristof and Darmstadt’s Marcel Schuhen are the duo’s closest pursuers. In fifth place is Dennis Seimen, who has kept six clean sheets so far with SC Paderborn. It’s hardly surprising, then, that all five teams are right in the thick of the promotion race.