Karel Geraerts has made a painful mistake with his team Schalke 04 in the German second division. In a duel at the bottom of the rankings between numbers fourteen, Schalke, and fifteen, Kaiserslautern, Geraerts’ men suffered a bitter 4-1 defeat.
Both teams change positions in the standings due to the result, so that Schalke now ends up just above the relegation zone.
Schalke started the new year well with two consecutive victories, but fell back into its old pattern in mid-January. Against Kaiserslautern, which had not won nine league games in a row until today, they could not pick up the thread again.
Ragnar Ache (10′) gave the home team an early lead. Schalke leveled just after half-time thanks to Darko Churlinov (51′), but then completely collapsed. Ache (59′), with his second of the evening, Filip Stojilkovic (67′) and Aaron Opoku (70′) knocked Geraerts’ team to the canvas.
Schalke is in fifteenth place with twenty points from nineteen games. Only three teams, all of which still have a game in hand, are doing even worse. Braunschweig (16th) and Hansa Rostock (17th) have seventeen points, while bottom VfL Osnabruck (18th) has only nine.