Leroy Sané came off the bench in the sixth minute and scored the game winning goal on the hour mark as Schalke defeated Hamburg 0-1 at the Volksparktadion. This win for Schalke keeps them in the third spot for another week while Hamburg move to ninth.
Schalke waste a couple of early opportunities
The visitors had a couple of chances in the second minute of the play with the first from Jean-Eric Choupo-Moting had a shot pushed aside and out for a corner. And on the ensuing corner, Franco di Santo’s header slammed off the cross bar.
After a lull in the action for the next twenty minutes, the early substitute was in behind the Hamburg defense and worked his way easily into the box before a poor touch on the ball got away from Sané ended the threat. Then, three minutes later, an effort from Choupo-Moting was tipped over the cross bar.
Hamburg’s first half-chance of the night came 33 minutes into the affair on a blistering counter attack. Aaron Hunt was given the ball on the far side of the pitch but his shot was extremely weak and the threat went away.
There was a scare for the Hamburg faithful, eight minutes before the halftime interval, which saw the home side’s defense gave the ball straight to the 19-year-old winger who then proceeded to work his way into the area before firing wide of the target.
Halftime: Hamburg SV 0-0 Schalke 04
Despite controlling most of the possession throughout the opening 45 minutes and going close to scoring a couple of times, Schalke were held off the scoreboard thanks to some great play by the home club’s goal keeper and a very compact back four that was giving the visitors all sorts of fits
Fährmann made a comfortable save in the 49th minute after Hunt tried his luck from 30 yards away from goal. Lewis Holtby, the former Schalke footballer, finally got involved in the action four minutes later only to see his chance wasted after good movement to get on the end of the pass.
There was a stoppage in play after that shot from Holtby as the center official had to be replaced. At first it was unknown as to why he was coming off the pitch but then was confirmed that he suffered from a left quad strain.
Substitute opens the goal scoring
On the hour is when Schalke finally found a way through as the young substitute’s hard work finally paid off. Leon Goretzka played the ball into the path of Sané who slotted the ball in behind Drobny. Goretzka, the man who provided the assist for the goal, nearly scored the second goal with 16 minutes remaining as his free header completely missed the frame of the goal.
The hosts should not be too disappointed with the result as they defended very well for most of the match. It was just going up the pitch where they suffered a little as Hamburg did not have the same quality as their opposition.