Overview

• Saturday’s 2. Bundesliga match at the Avnet Arena is sold out with about 27,350 spectators.
• Magdeburg enter on one win and four losses with 12 goals conceded in five games, dropping into a relegation place.
• Fiedler prioritizes tightening the defensive process and improving one‑on‑one duels after a week focused on cutting out individual mistakes.
• Center-back Daniel Heber is ruled out with recurring knee problems, with Herbert Bockhorn, Tarek Chahed and Mateusz Zukowski also unavailable.
• Schalke arrive on nine points from three wins and two narrow defeats under Miron Muslic, allowing few chances but scoring only five goals, despite recent head‑to‑heads between the clubs producing 21 goals across four meetings.