Valencia take their place at the top of group B after a well deserved away win to the German side in the Veltins-Arena. The score line will be a huge disappointment to the Schalke players and manager Mirko Slomka who was forced to watch the match from the stands after receiving a one match touchline ban for making a gesture to a referee in an earlier match.

Having failed to progress in their previous seasons in the Champions League Shalke had hoped that improvements made to the team and a recent draw at Bayern Munich would put them in a much better position to progress to the knock out stages. Both teams pressed for goals but found that through a combination of poor quality with the final ball and the quality of play in front of goal that they went in at half time on level terms with no goals scored.

After the break normal service resumed as both teams tried to create quality chances without much success. It was not until the 63^rd minute that David Villa for the visitors showed his quality and ran onto a cross from Luis Miguel to confidently round the home keeper Manuel Neuer and score what became the winning goal. Despite Shalke having several shots on goal to try to force at least a draw they were unable to open the visitors defence.

Schalke's assistant coach Oliver Reck made the point that Valencia required only one good chance to make the difference in the match and this is most definitely true of the team who now see themselves as the early pace setters in group B.