BERLIN: Schalke climbed from sixth to third in the Bundesliga on Sunday as Nabil Bentaleb scored on his comeback to seal their 2-0 victory at 10-man Bayer Leverkusen.
It was a sweet return for the ex-Tottenham Hotspur midfielder, who was dropped from Schalke’s squad a fortnight ago and told to improve his attitude.
Bentaleb’s penalty just before the final whistle capped a deserved win for Schalke who had taken the lead with just 11 minutes gone in Leverkusen.
When Daniel Caligiuri found Guido Burgstaller with a pass from 40 metres, the Austrian striker superbly flicked the ball over a defender and hit the bottom left corner of the net from 15 metres.
“We said clearly that we want to perform well and we succeeded in doing that,” said Schalke’s director of sport Christian Heidel.
However, the away win was overshadowed by injury to two Schalke fans, one of whom fell down stairs and is “in critical condition”, after suffering a head injury, Heidel revealed.
Schalke will be without Burgstaller for their next league game at Hertha Berlin after he picked up a first-half booking — his fifth yellow of the season.
Leverkusen had defensive midfielder Dominik Kohr was sent off for a second yellow card after just 38 minutes.
Embolo broke clear on 83 minutes and floated his shot over Leno, but the Bayer keeper got a glove to the ball and steered it over the crossbar.
Schalke then sealed the win thanks to a Leverkusen mistake.
When 19-year-old Greece defender Panagiotis Retsos stumbled with the ball at his feet, Embolo snatched possession and sprinted away.
Retsos’s sliding tackle from behind sent him tumbling in the area and the Leverkusen teenager was lucky to only be shown a yellow card.
Referee Daniel Siebert however pointed to the spot and Bentaleb, a second-half replacement, drilled home the penalty on 89 minutes. — AFP
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