“Starting the crunch time of the season”

We have made very good use of the last week and a half, especially to bring players back from long-term injuries and to train them. The boys worked extremely hard and gave everything they had to prepare for the final spurt of this season – both physically and mentally. We still have eight games left, but we want to play ten games. We need everyone for this. We played a reasonable 90-minute internal test match last Friday. During the current, longer training week, we worked the boys again. Starting today, we will analyse Bochum intensively and prepare specifically for the duel. Overall, we are approaching the next few weeks positively and optimistically.

We have our own agenda without looking at the other teams. In our situation we know we need points. We’ll see how the match day develops. We want to return from Bochum with points – ideally with three. That’s what we strive for. The stadium on Castroper Straße is one of the most atmospheric stadiums – especially under floodlights. The timing at 7:30pm is therefore very attractive. There is a lot at stake for both teams. Everyone wants to end their series and start a new one. It’s definitely going to be a heated game. But it’s fun to prepare because you know exactly what to expect.

What Bochum has achieved in recent years is also due to the audience, which always encourages and emotionally pushes the team in a heated atmosphere. VfL is characterized by a certain home strength. They play very man-oriented, with a lot of one-on-one duels. They want to stress the opponent with this. They also have a variability in their game: In addition to hitting long balls, they also look for football solutions in certain phases. They have an axis made up of key players like Stöger, Asano, Losilla and, above all, Riemann.

Nothing is expected of us anymore. The relegation apparently only revolves around two teams. We registered all of that. We’ll see… Normally you would be long gone. But it is part of the history of the Bundesliga this season that we can still play for relegation. The game in Bochum is a starting game in the crunch time of this season. We want to do this as well as possible. We are aiming for victory in Bochum. For this we need top performance, a lot of passion and tactical understanding.

Bochum has already been in the Bundesliga relegation battle for the last two years and therefore has a certain amount of experience. In the fight to stay in the league, we will need everything – not only a certain amount of experience but also youthful freshness. The fact is that it is an advantage for the Bochum team that they have been in these areas in the last two seasons and have managed to get out of there.

Oscar came back well from the national team, completed the first regenerative measures yesterday and will only train regeneratively today. We already saw in Leipzig and also against Bayern that he is getting into his rhythm, which is allowing him to build up self-confidence. The goals in the international matches showed that. He was able to gain a lot of self-confidence again.