Hoppe thanks his team-mates for his Schalke 04 debut

The striker joined

Schalke

U-19s in the summer of 2019, after showing off his talent in u23 games this season, he was transitioned to the first team. He thanked his team-mates for facilitating the process.

“When I joined up with the first team, I felt very welcome. Everyone helped to support and encourage me,”

said the 19-year-old.

Royal Blues’ head coach,

Manuel Baum

, attested

Hoppe

’s good adaptability:

“Matthew has a gift that is very important for young players when they are playing professionally for the first time – his humble and easy-going manner. It seemed as though he’d always been here right from the very first training session.”

Another Schalke youngster made the headlines as well in 04’s defeat on Saturday.

Luca Schuler

made his Bundesliga debut in the 81

st

minute, and the third player who shared the privilege was the 18-years-old midfielder,

Kerim Calhanoglu

. However, the trio of first-timers were ultimately disappointed with the final result against Borussia.

“It’s not an easy situation at the moment, but it’s a challenge that we want to tackle head on,” said Hoppe, who was involved in the Royal Blues’ spell of strong attacking play in the first half hour.

“We’ve got a good team and it was definitely a step in the right direction. We just have to make the most of all of our chances, even the half-chances, we need to get the winning feeling back. That makes things much easier. We’ve got some good games in us and we just need to keep working hard.”