Manchester United & Schalke 04’s Routes to the Semi Final

Manchester United have been touted as both the potential weakest Premier League champions in a while and Sir Alex Ferguson’s greatest team this season. The latter has been dropped since losing to Manchester City in the FA Cup semi final last weekend. Schalke 04 have been languishing in Bundesliga mid table this season.

These two sides who are set to reunite the English-German rivalry have had two completely different route to this stage, two legs away from a place at Wembley Stadium for this season’s Champions League final.

Manchester United came through as Group C winners, only conceding their first goal in their final game versus Valencia. No team progressed from the group stages scoring fewer than the lowly 7 goals United netted in their 6 games. Only Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid have kept more clean sheets in this competition so far.

In what was anticipated to be an easy group for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side, Manchester United ran out winners by 3 points, picking up 14 of a possible 18 points. They started their campaign with a goalless draw at home to Glasgow Rangers, but winning all 3 of their away games was the key to success.

After goalless draw in Marseille for their second round tie, Manchester United appeared to be heading safely into the quarter finals when they went 2-0 up in the second leg, before a Wes Brown own goal lead to a nervous last 10 minutes.

Chelsea also failed to score at home against the 1968, 1999 and 2008 winners, meaning Manchester United have kept clean sheets in all 5 of their Champions League away games so far. Park Ji-Sung killed the tie moments after Didier Drogba had pulled the aggregate score back to 2-1 at Old Trafford. Bursaspor are the only side Manchester United have beat by more than 1 goal in their 10 games this season. United ran out 3-0 winners in Turkey.

The 1997 UEFA Cup winners, Schalke 04 also won their group by 3 points. Picking up maximum points in their home group games, they conceded just 3 goals in a group that consisted of Lyon, Benfica and Hapoel Tel Aviv.

Manager Ralf Rangnick remains the only man in charge with a 100% record in this season’s competition. This is after former manager Felix Magath was sacked in mid-March after a disappointing domestic campaign, despite guiding Die Königsblauen into the quarter finals.

After Magath eliminated Valencia 4-2 on aggregate, Rangnick’s side upset defending champions Inter Milan over the two ties, maintaining their 100% home record by winning the first leg 5-2, having gone a goal down inside a minute after Dejan Stankovic’s sublime strike. Rangnick also managed his team to their first road win in this season’s Champions League when they won 2-1 at the San Siro.

Schalke have now scored 21 goals in this season’s competition, conceding 8 goals in their 10 games, with Manuel Neuer between the sticks. Manchester United have scored 12 and conceded 3.

Former Real Madrid hit man, Raul leads the way with 5 goals for the German side, while the pacey Jefferson Farfan has 4. Klass-Jan Huntelaar has 3 in this year’s competition, while his 7 goals domestically show he has yet to live up this expectations abroad having dominated the Dutch Eredivisie for a number of years.

Javier Hernandez leads the way for Manchester United with his 4 goals in 4 starts. Wayne Rooney has just 2 goals, one of which came from the penalty spot against Glasgow Rangers. These two should come up against the masked German defender Christoph Metzelder over both legs as they look to get the better of Manchester United target Manuel Neuer in the Schalke goal.

If this tie goes to a shootout, you’d expect the high-scoring Schalke to progress. The first leg takes place in Gelsenkirchen on Tuesday 26th where the German side look to maintain their 100% home record, and Manchester United look to keep their 100% clean sheet record on the road. Something has to give.

Manchester United are as short as ¼ to progress to the final. With those odds I will stay far from betting on the sole remaining English side.