Last Saturday, Ibrahima Cissé made his home debut for FC Schalke. The man from Mali impressed, even if not everything went right.

Ibrahima Cissé was considered a candidate for sale at FC Schalke 04. The 23-year-old no longer played a role under Reis after his yellow card in the opening game at Hamburger SV.

His successor, Karel Geraerts, also failed to call on the tall defensive player, who was subsequently only used in the club’s U23 side in the Regionalliga and was only allowed to play again in the final minutes of the away game against VfL Osnabrück the previous week, after it was clear that the club would not be relegated.

Will that change now? In the 2:1 win against Hansa Rostock, the French-born central defender was in the starting line-up for the first time under Geraerts. He replaced the injured Tomas Kalas and played a good game.

Afterwards, Geraerts was full of praise, with some reservations, as he probably wanted to see the Mali U23 international in action. After all, Henning Matriciani would also have been available as a central defender for the Rostock game.

Geraerts: “We need 30 more minutes”

“The game was very good for him. His next task now is to show that over 90 minutes,” said Schalke’s coach about the performance alongside Marcin Kaminski. Geraerts took Cissé off the pitch after 72 minutes after he became increasingly exhausted and was also unfocused in one scene. “He’s a young player. But in this league you have to keep up the level for 90 minutes. It was a very good performance, but we need it for another 30 minutes,” Geraerts demanded. Nevertheless, it does not seem out of the question that Cissé will get another chance at Schalke next season. His contract with the Royal Blues runs until 2026 anyway.

In the summer, Cissé returned from the U23 Africa Cup as a regular for Mali with a bronze medal and great expectations and was supposed to make his breakthrough in his second year at S04 after a disastrous first year. Cissé was repeatedly sent down to the U23s by Thomas Reis in his first season in Gelsenkirchen because he wasn’t focused enough in training and kept dropping out in test matches

I need more minutes to be ready to play 90 minutes every game.

Ibrahima Cissé

This continued in his first professional match at HSV. After that, he only made one more appearance before coming on as a substitute against Osnabrück in the 2-1 defeat at FC St. Pauli at the end of October. “I’m very happy to have made my debut in the Veltins-Arena,” Cissé told FUNKE Mediengruppe after the game. “It was a good game. I’ve hardly played since the Africa Cup last summer. But I had a good feeling on the pitch.”

As the game went on, however, it became more difficult for him to maintain the intensity and tempo. “I got a bit of cramp at the end. But I think that’s normal because I haven’t played for a long time,” explained Cissé. “I need more minutes to be ready to play 90 minutes every game.”

After the game against Rostock, it doesn’t seem out of the question that it won’t remain a one-off appearance in the Veltins-Arena. “We’ll see. I’ve already spoken to the club. I still have two years left on my contract here,” says Cissé, who still has hope that he will make his breakthrough at FC Schalke 04 after all.