Schalke 04 Vs. Werder Bremen, 2011 Bundesliga: Königsblauen Go Third With Dominant 5-0 Win

Saturday did not feature Tim Weise's finest hour. Along with his defense, the Werder Bremen keeper had a shocker, while Raul and Schalke 04 were very good in a 5-0 shellacking. While Die Königsblauen played well everywhere on the pitch and their finishing was excellent, this was hardly a dominant performance that should have resulted in a five-goal win. Weise and the Werder defense were unbelievably poor, and didn't look like they were up for a battle for fourth place.

It took just 16 minutes for Raul to give Schalke the lead, and just another four minutes for him to double it. In both instances, Weise should have done much better. The first goal was a short-range finish after Klass-Jan Huntelaar hit the post with a shot following a corner kick and the second wasn't much different, with Wiese getting caught out of position on another close-range goal, again assisted by Huntelaar.

Werder didn't really threaten the Schalke goal for the rest of the half (or at any point in the game), and the teams walked into the locker room with Schalke leading 2-0. It took ten minutes for Schalke to start getting into the game in the second half, but when they finally did, they poured it on. Teemu Pukki just missed a shot following a counter in the 55th minute, and from that point on, it was all Schalke.

Raul completed his hat trick in the 63rd minute with a header, assisted by Christian Fuchs with a cross. Once again, Weise and the Werder defense were caught napping. Kyriakos Papadopoulos added one with a header in the 67th minute, nodding in a corner kick by Jose Manuel Jurado. Huntelaar completed the rout in the 70th minute, hitting a brilliant finish into the side netting from a narrow angle.

Werder are now off for the holiday break, while Schalke have a DFB-Pokal match in mid-week against Borussia Mönchengladbach.