Leipzig back into Champions League spot with dominant win over Schalke
RB Leipzig move to fourth place in the Bundesliga table, as they defeat sixteenth-place FC Schalke 04 by a 2-0 result at Veltins-Arena. Antonio Nusa (37' P) and Rômulo (78') scored for the visitors in the victory.
Antonio Nusa celebrates the opening goal for RB Leipzig with teammates, 31. Miron Muslić's Königsblauen went into this match desperate for a victory to avoid the relegation zone, ahead of only 1.
FC Union Berlin and Borussia Mönchengladbach in the table. In the last four matches for the Nordrhein-Westfalen side, they have picked up just two points (0-2-2), scoring one goal and conceding three.
The Bundesliga has become their main focus, after their DFB-Pokal campaign ended in the second round to SG Dynamo Dresden by an 0-2 result this past Wednesday. As for Martín Demichelis' Roten Bullen, they have had relatively shaky results in recent weeks, with a 6-0 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt, a 1-6 defeat to FC Bayern München, and a 4-0 victory over SV Elversberg 07.
This, combined with their current UEFA Champions League and DFB-Pokal campaigns, have caused a heavy schedule with consistent midweek matches for the Sachsen side - nearly leading to an elimination from the latter tournament before Christoph Baumgartner rescued his side to a 2-1 win over 3. The two sides have met twelve times since Leipzig, founded in 2009, promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time in the 2016/17 season.
Leipzig are 8-2-2 overall, and have won all of their last five meetings - outscoring Schalke by a 22-3 margin in that span. In the 2023/24 season, the most recent for Schalke in the German top-flight, Leipzig won 6-1 away and 4-2 at home; the last time Schalke won in Leipzig was on 28.
September 2019 (3-1), and their last home win against Leipzig was on 19. The match kicked off with Schalke, in blue, going left to right, and Leipzig, in red, right to left.
The hosts started the match with a 3-3-2-2 formation, but Muslić changed it to a 4-2-3-1 after just one minute - in an attempt to counter the 4-5-1 that Demichelis had prepared. Leipzig won a free kick after just two minutes, thanks to Brajan Gruda as he was taken down by Hwang Hee-chan.
David Raum delivered the free kick far-post, into the right side of the box; Willi Orbán was there and knocked it towards Timo Becker - who accidentally deflected the ball past Loris Karius and into his own net. Assistant official Sascha Thielert raised the flag for offside on the Hungarian international, however - and thus, head official Dr.