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 immediately pulled his players together; while still on the pitch at the Hannover stadium, the new coach of FC Schalke 04 asked his team to come together to cheer themselves up rather than to do their first analysis.
The Royal Blues had previously failed to help Karel Geraerts’ successor to a successful debut in the 2nd Bundesliga. “It is disappointing that we cannot take a good result with us,” said van Wonderen after the 0:1 (0:1) defeat at Hannover 96, who had presented themselves as the expected strong home opponent.
Looking at it a little cynically, you could say: Kees van Wonderen arrived at Schalke in a hurry. The Royal Blues hardly managed any offensive play at all and only managed to score in the closing stages. “We defended well for long stretches,” said goalkeeper Ron-Thorben Hoffmann, who was playing his first second division game for Schalke. Offensively, “we tried something at the back. But we shouldn’t have had the first shot on goal in the 80th minute.”
Kees van Wonderen was quickly made aware of Schalke’s weakness in attack. “We’re playing in Hanover, they’re a good team with the fewest goals conceded, they’re very well organized. You can’t just 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 an excuse for me, but I’m not Harry Potter. We have to work on it, we need the agreements, but we also have to gain experience, bump our heads” and learn from it.
The fact that Schalke has had to swallow a goal from a set piece has been one of the rarities this season. “The defender always has to be the first at the first post,” said van Wonderen about the rehearsed variant that Fabian Kunze had already used to score Hannover’s winning goal in the fourth minute. In any case, he is “not at all worried” about the team’s attitude. Van Wonderen: “Everything is there.”