1. FC Köln 0-0 FC Schalke 04: Bundesliga Match Report, 24 October 2026

Our preview of this match was written on 18 October 2026 but only went live on 1 November, after the final whistle. Its pick is reviewed below as it was written, and it is left out of our win rate and bankroll.

Goalless at the interval and goalless at the end: 1. FC Köln 0-0 FC Schalke 04. With nothing on the scoreboard in either half there is no sequence of events to describe, so the interest lies in whose season the result resembles.

It was not Köln's. They arrived twelfth on seven points with a goal difference of minus three, and their six league matches had produced 19 goals, better than three a game. None of the six had finished goalless. This one followed a 1-0 defeat at Frankfurt, so Köln have now gone two matches without scoring.

Schalke, fifteenth on five points and also on minus three, have been here before. It was their third 0-0 in seven, after home draws with Bayern München and Elversberg, and their first clean sheet away from home; Augsburg, Union Berlin and Freiburg had all scored against them. Since the 3-1 win at Union in September, the promoted side has scored once in four league matches.

Köln can at least point to their home record, which is still unbeaten: two wins and two draws from four games in Cologne. All three of their defeats have come on the road.

Very little in the table, which is the honest reading seven rounds in. Köln move to eight points and Schalke to six, both still on minus three, and neither total carries much meaning by itself yet.

Measured against last season it reads slightly better for Köln. They finished fourteenth on 32 points, under one a game, and eleven of their 34 matches were draws, the joint-most in the division. Eight from seven is a touch quicker than that, and a home draw with a promoted side is very much in character.

Schalke have no 2025/26 Bundesliga line to compare with. What they have instead is a defence conceding exactly one goal a game and an attack that has produced four in seven. A promoted club can live on the first of those for a while. The second is the figure that has to move.

Our preview's call was 1. FC Köln Win at 2.20.

It was a low-confidence pick resting on one strand: seven points from nine at home for Köln, against a visiting side with four goals in six rounds. Both figures were accurate. The misjudgement was in which of them to trust. The preview called Schalke's defence the best thing they owned, seven conceded in six and a goalless draw with the champions, and then backed Köln's home attack to break it. The defence was the sturdier evidence, and the preview had already said a 0-0 would surprise nobody. A price above 2.10 made a thin case worth betting; it did not make the case any less thin.

Verdict: not counted. The pick would have lost, but the preview only went live after kick-off.