FC Schalke vs Fortuna Dusseldorf player ratings: The Henning undoing

FC Schalke welcomed Fortuna Dusseldorf to the Veltins hoping to establish some sort of dominion at home. Henning foiled that. Here are the player ratings.

FC Schalke had a lot of navigating to do when it came to deploying the starting XI. They were started on the defensive end and rich on the attacking end, forcing David Wagner to make some tough decisions.

The toughest decision was probably in sitting both Guido Bugstaller and Mark Uth and going instead with Benito Raman against his old club.

It started out a cagey affair, with a lot of FC Schalke possession and not a lot of attacking umph. It was a slow build though, with more possession pushing gradually up towards the Dusseldorf end. The first real chance came in the 25th minute when Raman found himself in on goal twice within a minute of each other. The first was cleared off the line and the second, after tremendous build-up, was fired wayward of the top corner.

A mere eight minutes later, FC Schalke broke the deadlock. Daniel Caligiuri and Benito Raman combined on beautiful interplay, touching the ball back and forth, and when Raman pulled defenders away from center, Caligiuri hit the gap and Raman found him for the assist on a stellar finish from the venerable Italian.

That would round out the first half, very heavily bossed by FC Schalke with a few squibbles of hope from Dusseldorf.

Coming out in the second half, Fortuna Dusseldorf were on the front foot, but FC Schalke weathered it admirably and retained the lead and had two fantastic chances when Dusseldorf had two men down on the pitch. Amine Harit was denied by the cross bar and Alessandro Schopf was denied by Steffen.

The bad luck struck at the hour mark, when a bullet head from Adams struck Weston McKennie‘s hand from close range. After VAR, the penalty was given (fairly, it must be said), though the accompanying yellow card felt like overkill, as there was no intent.

The match really opened opened up from there. What was once a cagey match became a back and forth of who could score the last goal, and in the end, Schalke had to leave feeling disappointed, as they blew three leads, all to one man, the new boogeyman Rouwen Hennings.

Here are the player ratings.