"We've left the Blues behind,” said Borussia Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke in November 2016. "They won't ever catch us up.”
Watzke was speaking after his club overtook local rivals Schalke in terms of membership numbers, but he also could also have been referring to the footballing fortunes of both clubs at the time.
Either way, three years later, he has been proven wrong. Dortmund may have made the short journey to Gelsenkirchen on Saturday three places above Schalke in the Bundesliga, but kicker magazine was absolutely right to describe the two rivals as "on an equal footing” ahead of the 179th Revierderby.
It was a prescient headline which ultimately proved to be an understatement. Because, although the derby ended goalless, there could be absolutely no doubt that the result flattered the Black and Yellows and that Schalke had deserved much more.
After Jadon Sancho stung Alexander Nübel's hands with a fierce early effort, it was one-way traffic in the Veltins Arena, and it was heading in the opposite direction. Salif Sané hit the bar with a header and Suat Serdar struck the post after capitalizing on some calamitous Dortmund defending which began with Sancho losing possession and ended with Mats Hummels clearing the ball into Thomas Delaney's face.
It summed up Dortmund's performance on a day where Lucien Favre once again failed to get the most out of what is an undeniably talented squad. But at Schalke this season, the opposite is true.
Succeeding where others failed
This summer, when David Wagner arrived at back at the club with whom he won the UEFA Cup as a player in 1997, he inherited a squad which neither Markus Weinzierl nor Domenico Tedesco had been able to mold to their philosophies. In the past three seasons, the tenth and 14th place finishes provided a better reflection of where Schalke were than the runners-up spot in 2018, and sporting director Christian Heidel rightly paid the price.
Under Wagner however, that same squad is a different beast. Serdar and Omar Mascarell suddenly look like midfielders capable of controlling Bundesliga matches, Daniel Caligiuri is back to his creative best and Amine Harit is enjoying a breakthrough season.
At the back, Jonjoe Kenny is settling in after a baptism of fire at home to Bayern Munich on matchday two and it was little surprise to see Sané out-jumping Axel Witsel and powering a header against the bar, the Senegalese center-back having already scored twice this season.
There is still work to be done up front through. "We need real strikers' goals this season,” said Wagner ahead of the derby, conscious of the fact that, in the top of the table, only Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim have scored fewer goals this season than the Royal Blues.
The future's bright
Against Dortmund, they had almost twice as many shots on goal, won eight corners to the visitors' two and were caught offside five times, figures which reveal a clear superiority but did not result in goals. The main culprit was Rabbi Matondo, the teenager thrice failing to beat Marwin Hitz when one-on-one, although the offside flag was raised on two of those occasions.
"Rabbi could have won us the game but he is just 18 years old,” said Wagner, right not to be overly critical. "He played well and he'll score plenty of goals for us in future.”
The same applies to Ahmed Kutucu, the local Schalke fan who has come through the club's famous "Knappenschmiede” academy and who replaced Matondo in the second half. Both offer more than Guido Burgstaller who, despite his work rate, is still without a goal this season.
Nevertheless, Schalke under Wagner are greater than the sum of their parts – in sharp contrast to their rivals across the Ruhr Valley. Borussia Dortmund may still be one point and three places ahead of Schalke, but they have certainly not left the Blues behind.