By Rich

​Rouwen Hennings is a 32-year-old forward for Fortuna Düsseldorf. Hennings was born on August 28th, 1987 in Bad Oldesloe, West Germany, and spent his youth career playing for VfL Oldesloe until 2001 and Hamburger SV from 2001 to 2005. His senior career continued at Hamburg, where he made 51 appearances for the club’s reserve squad from 2005 to 2007, scoring 11 goals. He played for VfL Osnabrück on loan in the 2007-2008 season, then for St. Pauli on loan for the 20o8-2009 season. His transfer to St. Pauli was completed in 2009, where he stayed until 2011, then played an additional season on loan to Osnabrück in 2012, before transferring to Karlsruher SC until 2015 and Burnley until 2017. He joined his current club on loan in 2016, and has been a permanent player there since 2017. Hennings also played for Germany’s U19, U20, and U21 squads, scoring 17 goals in 29 appearances between 2005 and 2009.

By Rich

​A late goal from Schalke’s Suat Serdar led to a 2:1 victory on Friday against visiting Union Berlin. Schalke scored the first goal in the 23rd minute, when Benito Raman found the net on a left-footed drive, but Union Berlin evened the score in the 36th minute, when Marcus Ingvartsen converted a penalty kick following a trip of Robert Andrich by Matija Nastasic. Schalke, having allowed 10 efforts on their own goal in the first half, dominated the second half, and finally took the lead in the 86th minute when the ball came to Serdar, who finished it into the bottom corner, handing Schalke their 7th win of the season and at least a temporary 2nd-place position in the table going into the rest of the weekend’s matches. Serdar’s goal, by the way, is his 5th this season, meaning he now has 1 more than in his previous 4 seasons combined. Leipzig and Bayern will both battle for the table’s first spot on Saturday, when they compete against, respectively, Paderborn and Leverkusen. The 2 clubs are tied at 24 points apiece, just 1 point behind Gladbach and Schalke. Although Paderborn managed a 3:3 draw last weekend against Dortmund, the club is still facing a 7-point gap between themselves at the bottom of the table and the safe zone further up in the table. Leipzig are currently enjoying a 6-match undefeated streak in all competitions, and striker Timo Werner is outscored only by Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski, whose own streak of finding the net in every Bundesliga match this season was broken only last week. Bayern have won all 4 matches so far under interim coach Hansi Flick, while Leverkusen have won their last 2 away matches. Leverkusen could climb as high as 4th place if they defeat Bayern, but that hasn’t happened in Munich since October 2012. Perhaps the key match of the weekend comes on Sunday, when Gladbach host Freiburg. Each of the 2 clubs, separated in the table by just 1 match, is without a key player: Matthias Ginter is suffering from a muscular problem, while Luca Waldschmidt suffered several injuries in the Germany-Belarus Euro 2020 qualifying match. Gladbach have won each of their last 4 home matches in the Bundesliga, while Freiburg have lost only 1 of their last 9 league matches.