Schalke desperate for victory over Dortmund

BERLIN, Dec 6, (RTRS): There has never been a bigger gap in the standings between leaders Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 ahead of a Ruhr valley derby in the first half of a Bundesliga season.

But Schalke, last season’s runnersup who are languishing in 12th place, know the 19-point gap will count for nothing when they host Dortmund on Saturday in Germany’s ‘mother of all derbies’.

The Royal Blues also hope they can stretch their unbeaten run at home to five years against their inform rivals, despite their own lacklustre shape.

Victory over Dortmund would instantly ease most of the pressure on

“Dortmund have yet to lose (in the Bundesliga) this season so it’s time. We won at home last season so why should we not do it again?”

Dortmund have so far played a sensational season, having gone unbeaten in the 13 league matches, making new coach Lucien Favre the most successful newcomer in Bundesliga history.

They have also scored a staggering 37 goals in 13 Bundesliga games, with top scorer Paco Alcacer and captain Marco Reus netting a combined 19 times, five more than the entire Schalke haul so far, for the best attack in the league.

Dortmund have also won eight out of their last nine league matches as they raced seven points clear at the top of the table, with teenager Jadon Sancho, voted player of the month in October, quickly becoming the revelation of the season.

“Our opponents are a top team this season, who are especially strong in attack,” Schoepf told his club’s website. “It is remarkable what Reus, Alcacer and Sancho, to name a few, are doing week in week out.”

“But we will not stay back. We want to play our game. Every team has weaknesses and we need to recognize them and exploit them,” said the Austrian.

With some 80,000 fans expected, Schalke will not get a bigger stage than Saturday’s to heave their season back on track.

Champions Bayern Munich, struggling this season in fourth place nine points off Dortmund, take on Nuremberg in their own Bavarian derby.

Second-placed Borussia Moenchengladbach host strugglers VfB Stuttgart.

Atletico Junior’s Colombian Luis Diaz (left), jumps for a header with Atletico Paranaense’s Brazilian Bruno Guimaraes during their Copa Sudamericana first leg final football match at the Metropolitano Roberto Melendez Stadium in Barranquilla, Colombia on Dec 5. (AFP)

in third.

Even at this stage of the season, it seems their only hope is give a helping hand to second-placed Napoli by taking points off Juve.

Inter’s recent record in the fixture is equally demoralizing, with only two wins in the 16 league meetings since winning their last Serie A title in 2010 under Jose Mourinho.

Inter are still smarting from their last meeting in April when they led 2-1 at San Siro with five minutes left, only to lose 3-2. That win practically sealed last season’s title for Juventus.

But in the previous match, Inter coach Luciano Spalletti could claim a moral victory as he outsmarted rival Massimiliano Allegri in a 0-0 draw at the Juventus stadium.

The duels between the pair are Juventus’ Portuguese defender Joao Cancelo, Brazilian defender Alex Sandro and Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini pose after receiving the award for best defenders at the “Gran Gala del Calcio” Italian Football Association (Associazione Italiana Calciatori – IAC) awards ceremony on

Dec 3 in Milan. (AFP)

They met again in 2012 in the Champions League when Allegri was in charge of AC Milan and Spalletti was at Zenit St Petersburg.

There have been five more meetings since 2016, three of those with Spalletti at AS Roma, plus the two last season following his move to Inter.

There is a mutual admiration between the pair with Spalletti admitting that he voted for Allegri in the recent Italian coach of the year award, which Allegri won.

“I voted for him because he is a great coach, it is difficult to find someone who stays on the same bench for so many years and wins everything he has won,” said Spalletti.

“It’s a difficult match, a fascinating and wonderful one against a great side with a lot of technical quality,” said Allegri.

“We are facing a team with great technical value. It’s the game of the year because it’s the Derby d’Italia and that’s always one of the toughest there is – it’s five out of five on the difficulty scale.”