Hildebrand asks Schalke to build on Basel success

Timo Hildebrand hopes FC Schalke 04 can use their UEFA Champions League success at FC Basel 1893 as a springboard to boost their domestic fortunes.

Jens Keller's side secured a second successive Group E victory with a 1-0 triumph in Switzerland to go clear at the top of the section and make a mockery of their stumbling start to their Bundesliga campaign. Largely untroubled at St. Jakob-Park as his defence held firm, Hildebrand said the display was one Schalke should learn from. Basel, too, as Marco Streller lamented his side's inability to reproduce the display that had defeated Chelsea on matchday one while acknowledging the "brilliance" of scorer Julian Draxler.

Timo Hildebrand, Schalke goalkeeper
We were very disciplined and we defended deep, just as the coach wanted. In the end, the win is deserved because we were a little better up front and had more chances than Basel.

The win is also important because Basel are rivals to us in terms of reaching the knockout rounds. And we've seen what Basel can do, and not only recently with the win against Chelsea. It's not self-evident that you come here and win. Now we have to take that self-confidence into the Bundesliga, and if we do that, this win will be doubly important.

Marco Höger, Schalke midfielder
There was a lot of disquiet before the game due to our recent results, which made it all the more important to win. The coach told us that we mustn't give Basel any counterattacking opportunities, which is what we did. After the break, we were a little better. The game was eventually decided by a wonder goal from Julian Draxler.

It's super that we now have six points. But Chelsea remain the overwhelming favourites. If they play as they are able to and exploit their full potential, then they're going to be tough to beat. But we want to show courage in our games with them and try to play our way.

Marco Streller, Basel forward
It was disappointing because it's the sort of game that typically ends goalless. Normally, games like these are decided by a set piece, but Draxler's goal was brilliant.

The reason I'm disappointed is that we didn't try enough going forward. We perhaps weren't as courageous as we should have been to try and make more of an impression on Schalke. That surprised me as we did that at Stamford Bridge, but we weren't able to do that this time.

We'd expected to be on three points at this stage of the campaign, thinking that we could perhaps beat Schalke and lose at Chelsea. So everything is almost as planned. But it's strange that we did such a good job against Chelsea and not tonight.

Giovanni Sio, Basel forward
We're disappointed. We wanted to do well at home, but this evening, Schalke were really well-positioned and able to counter us. In the first half, we played well. We didn't create many chances, that's true, but we were able to push them back. The goal really broke our will. We had to start again from scratch. We really had to shake ourselves up, and get ourselves going to try and get the equaliser.

I don't think we were too full of ourselves following the win over Chelsea. Each match is different. This evening we thought we'd play well, and we thought that we could do something after the first half. We didn't manage to do that, and we paid dearly for it.

I think we can take six points from our games with Steaua. They perhaps aren't in the best form right now. We didn't manage to win, but our spirit's not broken as we're still in the running. We'll be going there for the three points.