FC Schalke 04 looked to close the gap on their top four rivals with a win against 15th placed Freiburg in one of Saturday's 2.30pm kick-off's in the Bundesliga, and it was fair to say that they were seen as the favourites to prevail in their home fixture today.
The hosts were hoping to bounce back from a lacklustre 0-0 draw with FC Augsburg last weekend, which further damaged their hopes of cliniching a Champions League spot. Roberto di Matteo made a hat-trick of alterations to that side, bringing in Sead Kolasinac, Dennis Aogo and Jefferson Farfan for Christian Fuchs, Leon Goretzka and Tranquillo Barnetta. Freiburg gained a huge momentum and confidence boost against 1. FC Köln, securing a 1-0 win and moving a step closer to safety. Their manager Christian Streich brought in Julian Schuster, Admir Mehmedi and Karim Guede, as he too made a triple change from the previous game. Jonathan Schmid, Nils Petersen and Nicolas Höfler were the men to drop out.
As the game began, the hosts were in full control. They dominated in terms of passing the ball and keeping hold of it too, frustrating their visitors who had to virtually feed off scraps and continue to press Schalke to win the ball in the early going.
Max Meyer came close to finding the target fifteen minutes in, as he latched onto a teasing delivery in the box but his resulting effort fired wide of goalkeeper Bürki's far post. Then a few minutes later, a Freiburg counter attack was emphatically cut out by a great sliding challenge from young Bosnian full-back Sead Kolasinac, who avoided giving away a possible penalty-kick with a clean tackle to win the ball and clear the danger away.
Jefferson Farfan span past his marker on the flank and whipped in a great cross after 25 minutes; Huntelaar's flick on fell towards the path of Meyer but the talented youngster could not shift his headed effort on-target. Partly because he was not expecting Huntelaar to touch the ball, but also his 5ft8inch frame is not the tallest to increase leverage.
Schalke then should have found themselves ahead. Two goal-scoring opportunities in the space of two minutes from Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar flashed just wide, and although they were well-struck, probably should have floated into the back of the net. A few yellow cards were brandished by the referee, as tempers began to flare before the half-time interval, with the scores still goal-less.
In the second-half, neither side made any changes as both teams looked for the opening goal. Freiburg almost got just that, in the 58th minute. Mehmedi weaved his way past Joel Matip on the edge of the area before shaping to shoot inside the box, but for a last-ditch tackle from captain Benedikt Höwedes caught the forward from behind. He went down, the referee pointed to the spot, and a penalty-kick was awarded. Julian Schuster stood up to take the spot-kick, but managed to fire his effort over the crossbar and Schalke were luckily spared conceding the opening goal of the game.
Meyer curled an ambitious effort from 25 yards out towards goal, and it swerved towards the top corner - but Bürki made a good acrobatic stop to push the shot over the crossbar and out for a corner-kick. The resulting delivery flew towards the head of Choupo-Moting, whose power header arrowed towards goal, and looked as if it was destined to float into the back of the net but for another good stop from Bürki.
Julian Draxler made his long-awaited return to first-team football, coming off the substiutes' bench in place of Meyer with just under fifteen minutes left to play, as di Matteo's men were eager to get a late winner and avoid back-to-back draws.
As the clock ticked down, the final few minutes were tense for both sides, eager for a late winner on a pitch which was stretching and also testing the players' stamina to the limit. In the end, it stayed goal-less and means Schalke are now ten points off Bayer Leverkusen in 4th place, who beat Mainz 05 in their respective match.