Borussia Dortmund's U17s celebrated an impressive 6-2 derby victory over FC Schalke 04 to advance to the final round of the German Championship as West German runners-up. Their opponents in the semi-final first leg on Wednesday 1 May (11:00 CEST) will be Rasenballsport Leipzig, champions of the Bundesliga North/Northeast.

Leverkusen claimed first place in the Bundesliga West with a 3-0 win at RW Essen and secured the West German championship. Leverkusen finished with 68 points in the table, while BVB have 66. The second leg of BVB's semi-final will take place in Leipzig next Saturday (4 May).

Although qualification for the final tournament had already been decided before kick-off, the Black & Yellows nonetheless delivered a top performance against Schalke. Marco Lehmann had rotated his squad in order to spread the load, but after some initial difficulties, the team quickly got up to speed.

Fritz Fleck opened the scoring in the seventh minute. His free-kick ended up in the back of the net via a deflection off Slavytskyi to make it 1-0. Schalke's Jonas Zgorecki then scored an unfortunate own goal after a misunderstanding with goalkeeper Nick Bodon (12), and less than five minutes later Zgorecki was shown a red card for a handball. Because the Schalke bench protested too loudly, referee Simon Wölfinger also showed a red card to an assistant coach.

BVB were undeterred by this and remained highly focused on the task at hand. "Keep going, don't be satisfied," demanded Marco Lehmann in the coaching zone. And his boys followed up with action. Justin Hoy scored the third goal after a fine pass from Ousmane Diallo (33), and Mussa Kaba made it 4-0 with his first goal of the season, scored from a free-kick delivered by Hoy (36).

First signs of relaxation after going up 6-0

Lehmann quickly used up his quota of substitutes in the second half. Tim Degener made it 5-0 with a fine shot from 16 metres out after Oskar Schwarz had outpaced three Schalke players on the left, and Thierry Fidjeu-Tazemeta then headed in unchallenged from Justin Hoy's corner to make it 6-0. The Black & Yellows then let their guard down in the closing stages. Vincent Carus and Alexander Ivankin capitalised on Dortmund's carelessness to make the scoreline more respectable for Schalke.

"We weren't happy with the last few minutes, but overall we can be very satisfied. It's not a matter of course to win like that against Schalke. Now we're looking forward to the semi-final," summarised Marco Lehmann, who began his preparations for Leipzig immediately after the final whistle: "They're a very strong team with some outstanding individuals."

U17: Herdes – Mahjoubi, Benkara (56, Riedl), Reggiani, Feddersen – Kaba (61, Blaszczyk), Degener – Fleck (46, Ngambia), Hoy, Diallo (46, Schwarz) – Etcibasi (56, Fidjeu-Tazemeta)
(wiwi)