The U17s of FC Schalke 04 are marching through the B-Junioren-Bundesliga West despite injury worries. Coach Thomas Bertels already looked ahead to the two top duels of the league.

FC Schalke 04’s U17 team is the benchmark in the U17 Bundesliga West. In the small derby, they recently defeated Rot-Weiss Essen 2-0 and maintained their lead in the standings.

Head coach Thomas Bertels’ team performed almost frighteningly well over the 90 minutes. An early lead was followed by the second goal shortly before the break, before the juniors easily played the game over time in the second 45 minutes and were particularly convincing in defense, not allowing any scoring chances for RWE.

Bertels was also pleased about this after the final whistle and spoke of a “very decent, mature performance”. This sovereignty is surprising in view of the failures of the Schalker. Taycan Etcibasi, the top scorer for the Königsblauen with eight goals, was absent, as was Kayhan Sayman, the second-best scorer with six goals.

Both stayed with the German U17 national team. Likewise, regular central defender and the equally offensively active Tristan Top-Rasmussen with four goals was absent due to injury. With Luca Schroer, Louis Britscho and Ben Weber, another three supplementary players were also missing.

Just because of the many absences, Bertels highlighted his required substitutes after the victory: “I think it’s good that the other guys were there then. As a coach, you always say that the guys don’t believe it when they sit on the bench for eight weeks, but at some point everyone is needed. Then they have to deliver and that’s what they did.”

The enormous breadth in the squad of the blue and white is also responsible for this terrific run of the season. However, the two toughest games in the league still await the Schalkers on the last two match days of the first half of the season. First, they travel to second-place Bayer Leverkusen (Wednesday, October 25, 7 p.m.) before playing the Revier derby at home against third-place Borussia Dortmund (Sunday, November 5, 1 p.m.).

Bertels looked ahead to the two “easy games,” as he jokingly called them: “We want to approach the games like any other and, of course, win. It’s clear that this won’t be so easy against Leverkusen and Dortmund. But I also don’t think they’ll be singing and clapping now when they have to play us. We’ll be preparing for Leverkusen in the coming days, but for now we’ll just enjoy the victory. “