samedi 21 mai 2011

Schalke end disappointing season on a high

Schalke 04 ended a disappointing season on a high on Saturday as they won the German Cup with a convincing 5-0 victory against second division club MSV Duisburg.

Teenager Julian Draxler, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Benedikt Hoewedes gave the favourites a convincing three-goal lead at half-time before Jose-Manuel Jurado and Huntelaar added two more in the second half.

Schalke coach Ralf Rangnick, who only joined the club a few weeks ago after they had already qualified for the final, said that the game was not as easy as the score suggested.

"Duisburg did quite well and too be honest it was only clear after the third goal."

He said that he had decided to give Draxler a start because he had done so well in training. "I know many people would have been surprised by that, but I thought he could do a job."

The overwhelming favourites scored twice in the space of four minutes midway through the first half against Duisburg, who were missing several regulars through injury and suspension.

17-year-old Draxler gave his side the lead in the 18th minute after being sent through by Jefferson Farfan.

Just four minutes later Farfan again provided the final pass for Huntelaar's goal as the Peruvian international managed to go past two defenders before passing the ball into the area where Huntelaar just held the tip of his boot to the ball and nudged it into goal.

Duisburg then slowly started coming out of their shell and Olcay Sahan and Manuel Schaeffler should have pulled one back for the underdogs, but failed as their weak shots were easily saved by Germany goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, who is expected to move to Bayern in the coming weeks.

Three minutes from the break Duisburg goalkeeper David Yelldell gifted Schalke a third goal when he failed to come out strongly after a corner and allowed Hoewedes a free header.

Any hopes Duisburg had of coming back ended ten minutes after the restart when Huntelaar turned provider and sent Jurado into space, who had a simple task of beating Yelldell from close range.

Huntelaar then scored his second in the 70th minute after a defensive mishap in the Duisburg area.

Schalke then comfortably saw out the remaining time to win the German Cup for the fifth time in their history - thus bringing to a successful end a disappointing season.

Although they advanced to the semi-finals of the Champions League the cub finished no better than 14th in the Bundesliga.

Duisburg coach Milan Sasic said that even though he was disappointed that his side had lost, they had done well to get to the final.

"I want to thank the fans for their support. We could simply not do more today. It might have been a different game if we had all players available," he said.

The victory sees Spanish superstar Raul, who won just about everything there is to win in club football, a first-ever domestic cup victory as he never won the Spanish cup during his lengthy career with Real Madrid.

The Schalke striker celebrated with a Spanish flag after the victory ceremony.

The 5-0 victory is the highest score in a cup final since 1972 when Schalke beat Kaiserslautern by the same score.

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