I’m a Michigan fan. The last 15 years or so have been a little rough. The worst part of it though has been getting killed by Ohio State every year. You know going into the game that they’re a better team and things are going to have to go near perfect to win…and then they don’t. That’s how watching Schalke play Dortmund felt. BVB was down four starters and didn’t break a sweat while shoving Schalke’s face into the sand. Fortunately, I’m a US fan, not a Schalke fan…wait is that better? Let’s move on quickly.
Dortmund is levels above Schalke, but it sure didn’t help that crew from Gelsenkirchen stunk the joint up. The worst performance I’ve graded so far doing this was the USMNT’s loss to Canada in the Nation’s League. The team ended up with a -0.5 average. This one wasn’t too far behind. Schalke was terrible. The team average was positive, but not by a whole lot, 0.9.
I considered grading the BVB performance, but the motivation for doing so evaporated when Gio pulled up lame during warm ups. Plus, McKennie has gotten some criticism for his performance so I wanted to take a look and see what I thought.
If you haven’t read one of these USMNT (+/-) Player Grades articles before click here for an explanation of the system.
The Grades
How to Read the Numbers
| 15+ | Excellent game |
| 9-14 | Played well to very well |
| 5-8 | Solid |
| 0-4 | Not great, Bob |
| Below 0 | Listening to my kids argue 😑 |
*The Adjusted Total uses the Elo ratings to take into account opponent and competition factors.*
MOTM…sort of? Weston McKennie (+6)
Nobody really deserves man of the match, but McKennie came out with the highest score by my reckoning. The first half was pretty rough for a while, but eventually he righted the ship. Take a look at his performance graphed over time.
He was partially at fault for Dortmund’s opening goal, lost a ball in a bad spot in the 7th minute, and got dinged for several other small mistakes. He managed to right the ship though and by the end of the game he looked like one of only a couple guys still giving it his all.
It wasn’t McKennie’s best game and if you just look at the first half (particularly the first 30 minutes or so) it was bad. BUT if you hung in there and watched the whole thing the second half was much better. He won the ball a couple times, broke up three counter attacks, and did his best to bail water out of a sinking ship.
McKennie’s not good enough to put Schalke on his back and carry them and he might get pushed for the starting #8 spot on the USMNT sooner rather than later, but I don’t think McKennie was Schalke’s problem in this match.
Other Positive Performances
Nope.
Room to Improve
Suat Serdar (-5)
When things were going well for Schalke at the beginning of the season I was really impressed by Serdar. In fact, back in September I tweeted this during a game:
Serdar looks like he could play for Barcelona rn. Wow. #Schalke04
— HalfSpaces (@blharreld) September 28, 2019
This game? Not so much. He wasn’t much help defensively and he didn’t contribute to the attack either. He looked like a completely different player compared to the confident, classy midfielder I saw at the beginning of the year. No idea what the difference is, but plays like this aren’t going to help your team much.
Markus Schubert (-5)
Schalke really haven’t done themselves any favors at the goal keeper position this season. They are somehow about to lose Alexander Nubel to the Bayern Munich bench for nothing and are now stuck playing this guy. He didn’t make a notable save in the game and here’s what we’re dealing with from a distribution perspective:
There were also many aimless long balls. Like, so long they weren’t even 50/50 aerial duels…just kicked it back to Dortmund. Maybe that was part of the plan so they could press?
Which brings us to…
David Wagner (+1)
I have no idea what that number means at this point, but one thing I’ve been doing sporadically is keeping track of moments in games that are notable, but not really attributable to any particular player. If a team is too easy to play through, or squeezes a team to the point where they just have to boot it long – I give or take a coach point.
Wagner was -1 at halftime. Take a look at where the cumulative team +/- was at the half.
Schalke made a double substitution at halftime and it helped. They still gave up two more goals, but they looked a little better.
This is at least one of the problems that needed to be fixed:
Dortmund’s movement was opening huge spaces for Hazard and Brandt to get into. A fairly simple pass from a defensive midfielder was creating jailbreaks. The halftime changes corrected it, but it was too late. Dortmund’s goals in the second half were off a counter from a mangled Schalke attack and a defender messing up the offside line – they weren’t being carved open like they were in the first half.
In the end though, this was a superior team beating an inferior one in matter of fact fashion. The game plan would have had to be perfect and the players would have had to play towards the top of their ability levels. It wasn’t and they didn’t.
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