Borussia Dortmund vs Schalke 04: Five things we learned

Reus and Wolf see red mist descend

While the penalty call and Sané’s goal were well and truly shocks to the system, nothing could prepare Dortmund fans for what the second half had in store. With the scoreline 2-1, Dortmund were expected to respond, to show fight and battle back to claim all three points. They hadn’t lost at home in the league all season, after all, and there had been many results won from losing positions just like this one. In the 55th minute, Paco Alcacer replaced Thomas Delaney, a move that signaled Favre’s intent.

Shortly thereafter, things began to fall apart pretty quickly.

In the 60th minute, the first of the wheels came off when Marco Reus lunged into a tackle on Schalke’s Suat Serdar. With the tackle being from behind and with Reus making no contact with the ball whatsoever, he was given his marching orders. After the game had come to a conclusion, Reus was quick to issue an apology to both the fans and his team, taking responsibility for the mistake. To add insult to injury Daniel Caligiuri added to his tally on the night from the ensuing free kick, which rocketed into the Dortmund net, making it 3-1.

Just five minutes later, Dortmund fans would bear witness to yet another horror tackle, this time coming from Marius Wolf. Yet another challenge on Suat Serdar sent the Schalke player sprawling, leaving the referee with little choice but to send Wolf to the dressing room.

The unfortunate reality regarding these calls is that they were both deserved, and those two tackles have the very real potential to truly hamper Dortmund’s title bid this season, and not simply due to the loss to Schalke. Both Reus and Wolf will miss more than one game due to these cards, with Reus set to miss 2 and Wolf to miss the remaining 3. Both players are integral to the team in their own ways, and their absence will make the remaining fixtures all the more difficult.