The Revierderby wasn’t the same without fans but the teams were exactly what we expected

The Bundesliga returned on Saturday morning and Borussia Dortmund dominated Schalke in a one-sided derby.

Borussia Dortmund vs. Schalke is a fixture that always gets circled on the Bundesliga calendar. Saturday’s meeting between the two was spotlighted further by being the one of the first matches played as the German top flight became the first major league to return to play amid the pandemic.

The Revierderby wasn’t the same without the 80,000+ fans who would have normally filled Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park, but the teams were exactly what we expected. Dortmund title-chasingly good, Schalke sputteringly stale.

The hosts ran out comfortable 4-0 winners to start this strange run-in of the season. They celebrated in front of an eerily empty Yellow Wall, missing the 25,000 fans who usually pack Europe’s largest grandstand.

After a 65 day break it seems silly to put any stock in the two clubs’ form when the league went on hiatus, but Saturday’s matchday 26 meeting really just confirmed where things sat through the first 25 weeks of the season.

Dortmund had won four consecutive league matches before the break while Schalke had three draws and two losses in their last five matches before the season stopped. Dortmund had scored the second most goals in the league, more than twice as many as Schalke, who entered with a negative goal differential despite being in sixth place. Dortmund can score in bunches, Schalke can struggle to score at all.

Teenage terminator Erling Haaland (it had to be him, maybe the game’s next great superstar) opened the scoring in the 29th minute and Raphael Guerreiro added a second just before the halftime whistle.

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Schalke looked all but dead already before Thorgan Hazard lashed in a third just three minutes into the second half.

Guerreiro added the icing with a beautiful fourth, combining a smart run and stunning outside-foot finish.

The celebrations were weird and muted but as we’ve come to expect with Dortmund this season, there was plenty to celebrate.

The Black and Yellow can score plenty but defense has been the biggest question mark. Luckily for the hosts, Schalke never looked up to making the match a shootout.

Dortmund had 60 percent of the possession and created three times as many chances. While Schalke took nearly as many shots as Dortmund, the visitors took most of theirs from outside the box while Dortmund shot mostly from inside the box and created much more with their opportunities.

Both teams were very clearly knocking off the rust, but Schalke seemed to be stuck in an even lower gear.

Without fans, it felt like this match cut to who these teams are with a kind of clarity.

After weeks of watching old matches, telling off-field stories and planning for a return it felt like a blast from the past to have some kind of new action to watch and analyze. Turns out all we learned about these two teams was what we already.