Kohfeldt: “I longed for it”

We have months of great emotions behind us. First the promotion to the Bundesliga, then a rather messed up season and now the difficult start to the second division season. That ended in Torsten Lieberknecht’s decision to clear the way and enable new impulses. Our respect for this decision goes to Torsten. He left not only sporting footsteps, but also human ones. In the club and in the city. These will have an impact for a long time. Officially, a big thank you to Torsten Lieberknecht.

I would like to take this opportunity to make an appeal to everyone: stop looking back. That’s not good for the club. We should rather look forward, start a new chapter and live the virtues of Darmstadt 98. The theme is: tackling new things. At best, we’ll start with that on Saturday against Braunschweig. Florian Kohfeldt is now responsible for this. Welcome to Darmstadt.

I had telephone contact with Florian for the first time on Sunday evening and we agreed to meet in person on Tuesday. We then sat together for almost four hours and talked about everything. It was a top conversation in terms of content, we were quickly on the same wavelength. Florian really impressed me. We spoke on the phone again over the next few days and then on Friday I got involved in a larger group at the club that Florian introduced himself to. Afterwards we all quickly agreed that Florian should be our new coach. And we are very happy about it. He was our absolute preferred candidate.

„I knew beforehand that Flo and his game idea could suit us. But before the discussions, I didn’t know exactly how he wanted to implement his ideas. And what makes people tick. But it quickly became clear to me that Florian is very structured and has a lot We talked about everything from training content to the organisation of a half-time break. We are convinced that Florian is exactly the coach we need at this moment.

Ovid Hajou was released from work yesterday. Martin Heck joins as assistant coach, Darius Scholtysik remains in the team. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ovid for his excellent work over the last few years.

I’ve been here in Darmstadt since yesterday, had an intense day and felt that I was in a very familiar, harmonious but at the same time very professional club. The last time I was here in the stadium was nine years ago as assistant coach of Werder Bremen, when things looked completely different. The infrastructure is now noticeably positive. I know from personal experience what it’s like to coach a club that means a lot to a city and a region. I longed to feel something like that again.

I have already had initial discussions with the staff. The player discussions also started today. At best, I would like to speak to all the players this week. So far these have been positive conversations. They were characterised by confidence. I didn’t feel like there was desperation. I felt a lot of energy. Everyone wants it. Everyone wants to win. I’ve already tried to get an idea of ​​each player in advance. Of course I knew some of the players because I was interested in football in general. Nevertheless, it is important that we all get to know each other quickly.

We want to convey a clear idea of ​​how we want to play. But also keep an eye on the emotional aspects when special moments happen in the games. We will certainly adapt the football here to our ideas. But there is an existing foundation that I can build on. In summary, my idea is targeted, dominant possession football. Always looking for tempo action. And with the aim of getting the ball back as quickly as possible.

Of course, it will take some time until our idea is completely internalised. But I don’t want to make excuses just yet. I hope that on Saturday we can see the basics of what this team is supposed to stand for. We will complete a total of three units today and tomorrow. Detached from Braunschweig, we will only focus on ourselves in order to bring the basic principles of our idea into the team.

There are many players in the squad with development potential who have certainly not yet exhausted their potential. There are many strong players and a multi-faceted offense. Defensively, individual quality is certainly not the problem, but we have to manage to get general stability on the pitch.

It is legitimate that there are question marks as to why my last two positions were rather short. But I’ve stopped trying to explain everything because unfortunately it often doesn’t get through. I have not experienced the past few years as a career downturn, but rather I have gained a lot of valuable experience. When I decided to join Darmstadt 98, I didn’t think for a second what it would mean for my career. I just asked myself: „Is this club suitable for me?“, „Do I want to do this job?“ and “Can I give the club something that will help them?” I was able to answer “yes” to all three questions.

It is always important to reflect. I tried to continue my training during the time without a coaching job. I reflected on my past stations. All the experiences I have gained along the way will help me to be a better coach now than I was a few years ago. But from now on it doesn’t matter what happened yesterday or five years ago. From now on, what counts is what we bring to the pitch with the team from Saturday.