With a raucous home crowd behind them, Schalke made a fast start. However, their positivity was curtailed within the first ten minutes when Christoph Baumgartner was fouled in the box by a reckless Leo Greiml challenge, forcing referee Florian Badstübner to award Hoffenheim an early penalty kick after a VAR check. The subsequent spot-kick was dispatched with aplomb by Robert Skov, silencing the home faithful.
The hosts pushed to get back onto level terms, and piled too many bodies forward in the dying moments of the half. After a Schalke corner, Hoffenheim broke down the other end of the field before Mu'nas Dabbur capped off the counterattack with a perfectly-placed, curled strike, doubling the visitors’ lead with nearly the last kick prior to the interval.
It went from bad to worse for the Gelsenkirchen-based side in the second half, as Hoffenheim were awarded another penalty when Thomas Ouwejan was judged to have handled the ball in the box on the hour mark. Just like his first strike, Skov stepped up and hammered home from the spot, driving the final nail into the Schalke coffin.
After failing to win any of their previous three games coming into the match, the Hoffenheim supporters will be delighted with an away thumping that sees them move up to third in the Bundesliga table ahead of the rest of the weekend’s action. In all fairness, the result is hardly a surprise considering Die Kraichgauer had won eight of their last ten Bundesliga clashes with Schalke before kick-off. Frank Kramer's men, meanwhile, will be looking for immediate revenge when they travel to Hoffenheim's PreZero Arena for their DFB-Pokal clash on Tuesday.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Robert Skov (TSG Hoffenheim)
