Daniel Farke felt Leeds United overcame the odds as they replicated a Championship challenge this week to end their Germany trip with a second win.

The Whites followed up a midweek 4-1 victory over an overpowered Hannover 96 side with a professional 2-0 win against Schalke 04 on Saturday. Schalke provided a much stiffer test for Leeds and made the friendly more of an arm wrestle, before Leeds eventually took over in the second half and ran out comfortable winners.

Mateo Joseph made it three goals in two games with his second half header, before Joel Piroe made it two in two with a header of his own.

For Farke the performance was all the more impressive given the physical demands placed upon his players over the past fortnight. He said: "That's the reason I'm even more pleased than with the win on Wednesday because actually the odds were a bit against us. The lads are since two weeks without a day off, really hard working, you could feel in the last days they were a bit tired and it can also be trying if you're 24/7 always together. Then we faced an opponent, after we've had lots of praise, who was sharp for this game, their last test. They wanted exactly this game as the last test, seven days before they start, so they started with their strongest line-up."

The Leeds boss saw the two-game programme as somewhat of a Championship examination for his side, particularly given the profile of the Schalke team. "It's a different side to Hannover," he said. "They played with lots of physicality, rotation, many tall players. Exactly what you face in the Championship. After a tough win three days later you go to face a difficult side and you have to survive this. You could feel after 20 minutes we were a bit under pressure and it was not our best performance but then the way we found a way to fight our way back into the game. Not just to fight but sticking to our principles and processes to dominate the game and bring it more and more in their half and in the last 20 minutes of the first half we had two or three really good chances and should have scored."

What followed after the break was domination from Leeds, who could have made the scoreline every bit as comprehensive as Wednesday's victory had they taken their chances. For Farke, the clean sheet was also important though. He said: "The second half, two great goals and if I'm not totally wrong a clear penalty, probably one or two more chances we should have scored. Very happy. We just played in their half for 30 minutes, were all over them and they didn't dare press any more. With many chances they went for it a bit more for a consolation goal but it was also important there to defend the clean sheet. Pretty happy with this outcome and a perfect nearly finish of the training camp."

Leeds will train again on Sunday at their hotel base before flying back to England on Monday and continuing their preparations for a season that begins in two weeks' time against Portsmouth at Elland Road. Before then the Whites will welcome LaLiga side Valencia to West Yorkshire for a Saturday August 3 friendly.