Bayern visits Schalke in Bundesliga

Schalke coach Felix Magath has won a vote of confidence going into the match against Bayern Munich and now he needs to show he deserved it.

Magath came to Schalke hoping to bring the storied club its first Bundesliga championship in five decades. Schalke did better than expected in Magath's first season and finished runner-up to Bayern.

Schalke is doing much worse in Magath's second season after a major overhaul and the team is only three points away from the bottom - and 24 points from the top.

Magath had to report to the club's board on Wednesday and while some media were already speculating on his successor, chairman Clemens Toennies dismissed such rumors as "rubbish."

"Magath told us how he plans to improve the situation with the team and we are convinced that he will succeed," Toennies said after the meeting late Wednesday.

Magath had the reputation of being somewhat of a "torturer" in his early days as coach, stressing discipline and old-style fitness training and he has gone back to some of his feared methods to shake up a team that lost 5-0 at promoted Kaiserslautern three days after advancing to the round of 16 in the Champions League.

Schalke players had their Christmas vacation cut to five days, a training camp during the winter break extended by a week and they practiced in shorts and without hats or gloves on an icy, snow-covered pitch, one hour earlier than the usual 10 a.m.

He also sent three players to the reserve side that plays in the fourth-tier league, including U.S. midfielder Jermaine Jones. Jones would have been suspended against Bayern anyway.

Despite the problems, Magath said "the match against Bayern will be easier for us."

Magath expects his players to be much more motivated against one of his former clubs, hence the upbeat mood.

But he could be missing winger Jefferson Farfan, who is recovering from a cold - contracted before the icy training.

Farfan has been instrumental in creating opportunities for Raul Gonzalez and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, two of Magath's newly signed players.

Magath won the domestic double twice with Bayern and led Wolfsburg to its only Bundesliga title. Schalke bosses had that record in mind when they hired him.

"I had and still have much higher expectations from Felix Magath than avoiding relegation," Toennies said at the start of the week.

Bayern's coach Louis van Gaal went through a similar process shortly before Magath and also received strong backing from the club's front office, despite several misunderstandings and earlier criticism from club bosses.

"He is an exceptional coach with great capabilities," Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said during a club conference this week.

"He is a special character who is often overemotional. That often doesn't make things easier, but we are sure that we'll win many more titles with Louis," he said.

Bayern is currently fifth, 14 points behind leader Borussia Dortmund, "and that's not enough," Rummenigge said.

"But we are always able to start a winning run and no title is awarded at Christmas," he said.

Dortmund, which has set a record for the number of points after 14 rounds at 37, hopes to extend its amazing record away from home of seven straight wins when it visits Nuremberg on Sunday.

No. 2 Mainz, seven points behind Dortmund, heads to a local derby at nearby Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday, while No. 3 Bayer Leverkusen hosts neighboring Cologne on Sunday. Fourth-place Hannover is at Borussia Moenchengladbach, the bottom club, on Saturday.

Also Saturday, Stuttgart hosts Hoffenheim, Wolfsburg plays Werder Bremen and Freiburg meets Hamburger SV.

St. Pauli kicks off the 15th Round on Friday against Kaiserslautern.