FC Schalke predicted XI: Borussia Dortmund and the Revierderby await
By Josh Sippie
Centerbacks
What possibility is lacking at fullback is made up for here, though that doesn’t mean that FC Schalke will take it. Sure, Salif Sane and Benjamin Stambouli were completely shredded by Ihlas Bebou, but does that mean we should throw out the entire defensive scheme? No. That won’t make the Bebou nightmares stop anyway.
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That said, the Bebou nightmares have a chance of manifesting in the black and yellow with Sane and Stambouli stacked up against an attack that, while volatile and unpredictable, is also a live wire.
Dortmund have so many threats across that attack that they can’t even fit them all into the starting XI. And that’s where the Bebou factor comes back into it. Bebou came on as a sub, and you better believe that Dortmund can introduce similar impact subs.
Meaning that, while stoic, Sane and Stambouli will have no respite for the entire 90.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. They’ll have their hands full, but they had their hands full against Leipzig as well and they handed themselves so well. We have to accept that they will get beaten at times, but more times than not, this is a centerback pairing you can belief in.
Let’s move on to those central midfielders.