The 23-year-old has made only one start this season and will hope to emulate his team-mate by scoring against his old team on Saturday. <\/p>\n
Bayern Munich midfielder Leon Goretzka is expecting a mixed reception when he returns to former club Schalke for the first time on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The Germany international, who joined Bayern on a free transfer in June, is looking forward to going back to Gelsenkirchen after being pencilled in for a starting spot.<\/p>\n
However, Goretzka does not anticipate receiving the same positive reaction from supporters which Bayern team-mate Renato Sanches enjoyed at Benfica in the Champions League in midweek.<\/p>\n
Article continues below<\/span> <\/p>\n Juve on alert: Exiled Icardi may have already played his final game for Inter Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over <\/p>\n “I think it will be similar to my departure,\u201d Goretzka told Kicker<\/em>. \u201cThere are two camps, the ones who wish you the best and who have understood my change a bit, and the others who are expressing their dissatisfaction. It will be the same on Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess it will not be quite like Renato\u2019s (return to Benfica).<\/p>\n “For sure this is a special game for me.\u00a0Personally, I’m just looking forward to coming back to Gelsenkirchen and seeing the old boys again.”\u00a0<\/p>\n “I arrived here very well, had very good, intense weeks to start, I am doing very well, I feel accepted.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Goretzka\u2019s only start of the season so far came in a 3-0 win at Stuttgart on September 1, but Bayern coach Niko Kovac confirmed the player will face his old club.<\/p>\n Kovac, who left Goretzka out of his squad for the subsequent victory over Bayer Leverkusen and then used him as a late substitute in the Champions League win against Benfica, said the 23-year-old had done enough to earn a start this weekend.<\/p>\n “Leon Goretzka is playing well so far,” Kovac told reporters.<\/p>\n “He has integrated well in the team. I’m convinced that he will do well tomorrow and will be in the starting 11.<\/p>\n Kovac wants his side to put in another dominant performance against Schalke, but admitted it will be a tough assignment for his players.<\/p>\n “Against Schalke we want to pick up where we left off last week against Leverkusen. I’m expecting an aggressive, intensive match.<\/p>\n “If we play our best, we can win this game too. Otherwise it will be difficult.”<\/p>\n Kovac will hope Goretzka can emulate team-mate Sanches by scoring against his old\u00a0employers, with the\u00a0Portuguese midfielder netting\u00a0against Benfica on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Sanches scored Bayern’s second in the 2-0 triumph\u00a0as he made his first start for the German champions since May 2017.<\/p>\n Kovac praised Sanches and gave a positive assessment of his squad’s fitness ahead of the trip to Gelsenkirchen.<\/p>\n “Renato did very well against Benfica. He justified the faith we have put in him and he will play regularly in the coming weeks.”<\/p>\n “Every player that went to Lisbon is fit. The only absentees from the squad are [Kingsley] Coman, Rafinha and [Corentin] Tolisso. Otherwise\u00a0everyone is fit and will be available tomorrow.”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 23-year-old has made only one start this season and will hope to emulate his team-mate by scoring against his old team on Saturday. Bayern Munich midfielder Leon Goretzka is expecting a mixed reception when he returns to former club Schalke for the first time on Saturday. The Germany international, who joined Bayern on a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Editors' Picks<\/h3>\n