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

In terms of results, things are looking up again for Schalke: coach Miron Muslic has the team playing intense, exciting soccer—and the fans are loving it. The latest proof: in the 2-1 defeat at Eintracht Braunschweig at the end of the first half of the season, the Schalke ultras displayed a banner thanking the team for their performance: “Finally the pride of the city again—thank you!”

A big part of the success is the stabilized defense. In 17 games, the Royal Blues have conceded just ten goals. By comparison, Schalke were thirteenth in the table after the first half of last season and had conceded 33 goals, more than three times as many as they have conceded so far this season.

Loris Karius has also played a major role in this. The goalkeeper has saved Schalke quite a few points with saves in injury time and secured the top spot in the clean sheet statistics. The S04 keeper has recorded nine games without conceding a goal.

Only Tjark Ernst of Hertha BSC can keep up with him. His move from VfL Bochum’s youth team to Berlin in the summer of 2022 has paid off in full. Ernst is the regular keeper, even though the start of the season was difficult.

Hertha only picked up two points from their first four games – not enough for the number one promotion contender that Hertha BSC was before the season.

But the Berliners have picked themselves up and, despite three games in a row without a win before the winter break, are now back at the top. From the tenth to the 14th matchday, Ernst even kept a clean sheet.

With seven games without conceding a goal, Elversberg’s Nicolas Kristof and Darmstadt’s Marcel Schuhen are the closest challengers to the duo. In fifth place is Dennis Seimen, who has kept six clean sheets for SC Paderborn so far. It’s hardly surprising that all five teams are right in the thick of the promotion race.