Schalke 04 and West Ham United are playing live on Saturday for the Schalke Cup competition from Veltins-Arena in Germany and the match has a live stream online from ESPN and WatchESPN starting past 4:45 pm BST and 11:40 am ET and this continues the preseason for the Hammers WHUFC and fives the team another chance to warm up before the Premier League season starts.
West Ham comes in after playing a number of preseason matches and they will be part of this four team tournament called the Schalke Cup along with Schalke 04, Malaga and Newcastle United along with the Hammers. The team will not matchup with the Magpies, but that will come later and the team plays two matchups in this tournament and will be looking for a small trophy to start the season.
West Ham has already played against Stevenage as well as Ipswich town and both of those were draws, with the first match 2-2 and the second scoreless on both sides. The German side is a historic team and they started back in 1904 hence the 04 and now they will matchup with West Ham and the English side will be looking to have a solid performance and it comes after they spent the week in training. The team was also on the Football United Tour down under in New Zealand and lost to Wellington Phoenix and Sydney FC and now they will face the team from Germany.
Schalke is one ofthe strongest teams in Germany and they finished third in Bundesliga this season behind Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund while ended up ahead of Bayer Leverkusen and they also now are in the Champions League along with EPL teams like Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal. The Schalke side comes in having won numerous titles in their history, but they have not won in Bundesliga for many years and they also won a German Cup a few years ago and are looking to have a strong season as well.
The Hammers have been using different lineups through the preseason and they likely will field a strong group as the season gets closer and Schalke has a number of players that can make an impact, including Benedikt Howedes, who won the World Cup with Germany. Carl Jenkinson is a name to keep an eye on for West Ham for this game, as he has moved on loan from Arsenal and is just 22 and has plenty of potential for the team this year. This is the first time that the two teams have played before and that makes it slightly historic as well.
Check here for the Schalke 04 and West Ham United live coverage for the Schalke Cup from ESPN.
