Irritated Hecking: "Things that one cannot understand"

After the match, Dieter Hecking had a lot to talk about with referee Frank Willenborg picture alliance/dpa

Saturday night's derby between Schalke 04 and VfL Bochum was certainly no fireworks display. Tackling outweighed scoring opportunities. Nevertheless, a back-and-forth battle developed, particularly during the second half, in which the Royal Blues ultimately prevailed.

The Royal Blues countered Gerrit Holtmann 's opening goal with goals from Hasan Kurucay and Bryan Lasme , and numerous substitutions were also made on both sides. Moments that took a significant amount of time off the clock – and ultimately weren't compensated for by the mere three minutes of stoppage time. This caused considerable discontent among Bochum after the match, as the German Football Association (DFB) had announced just a few weeks ago that it wanted to increase the net playing time per match by extending stoppage time.

VfL coach Dieter Hecking also expressed his irritation at the small bonus, as "so much stoppage time has been added in recent weeks." This is understandable considering other matches, as the extra time in other league matches was significantly higher. A few hours earlier, in Hanover, they added six minutes, and in Karlsruhe, a full eight. Only in Gelsenkirchen, however, they did not.

There was certainly no shortage of interruptions in the second half at Schalke, not even from Hecking's point of view, who also sought a discussion with the referee team led by Frank Willenborg.

He then revealed that he was told it was "the technical time. I said: Okay, technical time? You have to explain that to me. Three goals, four or five substitutions that we had, we're already at four or five minutes. VAR review of the goal again and several stoppages where players were lying on the ground."

For the coach, it was clear that consistency was needed. While the 60-year-old emphasized that the short stoppage time wasn't the deciding factor "in us losing the game," he added that it was difficult to understand "that in one game it's eleven minutes and in the next only three or two. These are things that are somehow incomprehensible."