“Need a good feel for the moments of the game”

In terms of their self-image and their individual potential, Fortuna Düsseldorf is a team that wants to play for promotion. And they have the opportunity to do so. They brought in players who played at a Bundesliga level. They also have exciting boys from abroad in their squad and a good mix of experienced and young players. All of this combined with a coach who has gained experience in the 2nd league over many years. A lot of things fit together for them. They are strong in switching and in their compactness against the ball. They also defend the spaces extremely forward, which makes it difficult for the opponent to find playful solutions. Overall, they play very controlled and mature.

We showed that we are capable of finding our solutions against any team in the league. We have a lot planned. I therefore expect a very interesting game on Friday evening. In addition to our footballing skills, we need a good feel for the moments of the game. Balancing the risks against Fortuna Düsseldorf is a crucial factor in being successful against them. We have to pay a lot of attention.

There are different variants. Fynn Lakenmacher is in the middle of a positive development. He was able to make a huge impact as a substitute in the first half of the season. He would be the variant with a lot of physicality on the last line. We could also move Killian Corredor forward to play as a second striker and then bring in Luca Marseiler – or Merveille Papela, who trained extremely well in the training camp. He is one of our best pressing players. Oscar Vilhelmsson is also an option. He trained fully again on Tuesday. It was a great shame that after a good start to the training camp, he missed three days and also the test match due to illness. Given his player profile, he would be the most natural answer to the loss of Isac.

Aleksandar Vukotic, Clemens Riedel and Matej Maglica are three central defenders who can play at a high level in the league. We feel very comfortable with them in terms of quality. Nevertheless, Christoph Zimmermann is missing a fourth central defender. But when I get on the bus on Thursday and see Clemens, Vuko and Matej, I feel very relaxed and know that we are well staffed in this position.

From day one we want to go into every game to win. This is the attitude you should have as a coach and athlete. We want to develop stability. Stable development means that you have an answer to many facets of football. We managed to be successful against playing and active teams. However, we rarely managed to find answers to win these games against teams like Regensburg, Münster, Ulm or Braunschweig. We addressed these topics in the training camp. Overall, we want to get more than 24 points in the second half of the season. That is ambitious.

We have outstanding team chemistry – but that doesn’t just mean peace, joy and pancakes. Opinions are expressed and there is a good competitive mentality among each other. Tactically, set pieces were a big focus in the training camp. We want to become more dangerous in this area, there is still more possible. We continued to work on finding the trigger in the final third in order to become even more dangerous to score here with clearer patterns. Deep defence was also an issue and developing a feeling of security there. There were also individual discussions and analysis. We were able to work on all areas.

My goal is to develop young players, I think that’s what I’ve stood for in my career so far. But the young players have to have a basic level in order to be able to give them the next platform. This next platform would be to provide the gaming experience to the young players. So far in training they have not offered to give them several games in a row. That’s why we have to promote their further development in training – in the hope that they reach the necessary level. But it’s also about developing players overall. We see a lot of personal development in the pool of 20 to 30 year olds – the best examples include Kai Klefisch, Luca Marseiler, Killian Corredor, Sergio Lopez, Andreas Müller and Aleksandar Vukotic.