Schalke 04 vs Dortmund: 5 things learned in slaughterhouse Revierderby

3. Match fitness

It was absolutely shambolic how poor Schalke was at keeping pace with Borussia Dortmund. Sure, some of that comes down to Dortmund having really fast players, but Jonjoe Kenny isn’t slow and he was getting burned left and right (but mostly right). And he wasn’t alone in that sense.

It was expected that players would have questionable fitness in this match. This was an unprecedented match coming off just a few days of organized team training, all following two months of layoff. That’s hard to keep fit during, but it just felt like Dortmund kept fit far better than we did. Or maybe Dortmund was just far better organized than us. Who knows.

Whatever the case, as match fitness starts to return to the Royal Blues, I would expect some of the blackest eyes from this match to disappear from the team. That is absolutely my optimism speaking, but I just don’t remember ever seeing Jean-Clair Todibo getting skinned that early and that often.

So the natural thing to do is blame suboptimal match fitness levels. Die Knappen need to get in better shape across the board, and that will come with time.

Next up, No. 2.