“We want to deliver a great cup fight.”

For me, games have no hierarchy or priority. Therefore, Isac’s absence from the league clash against Schalke wasn’t a precautionary measure. He didn’t get on the bus on Thursday because he simply wasn’t feeling well after the intense training. He then took a two-day break and trained individually. Now he’s feeling better. As of now, I expect him to be in the starting lineup on Wednesday. As for Kai, I decided to spare him the trip to Schalke because the three games combined would have been too much for him. However, Kai is an option for Wednesday—even for the starting lineup.

Paul Will was an absolutely positive presence in the Schalke game. He brought a lot of energy, especially in combination with Mey Papela. He also contributed football-wise. Nevertheless, he was out for 14 months, but he handled those 30 minutes very well. Therefore, a start in the starting lineup is certainly unlikely, but a similar or even longer appearance is possible.

Bartosz did his job defensively at Schalke. However, we couldn’t get him involved offensively. It seems difficult to judge him based on that. He still enjoys a very high standing with me and will certainly be someone who gets playing time tomorrow.

Generally, a home game at the Bölle stadium generates a great deal of anticipation. Wednesday’s game is a special one. It’s the first time in a while that the Lilies have played a cup home game – and at 8:45pm,  it’s against a truly historic club. Two historic German clubs will be meeting in a 50-50 match. The league game already showed that. So, there are all the ingredients for a great cup night.

Additionally, the cup has enormous significance for me. I’m absolutely in love with this competition. We’ve had some really great cup games with the Lilies. We’re all highly motivated, incredibly excited, and want to put on a great cup fight with our fans—and that’s perhaps the difference from Friday—with lots of energy and deliver a really great cup battle, and then leave the game with a positive result. The cup is simply a great competition. And we want to advance.

Schalke will play very aggressively and actively here against us as well. In this respect, they’re not much different between home and away games. We, on the other hand, have to be more determined with the ball. We have to have more confidence in attacking the spaces we want to attack. We had a few breakthroughs against Schalke. But then we have to have the courage to push forward and dominate the game ourselves. We didn’t manage that with the ball against Schalke. But that’s our goal, no matter where we play.

Like Schalke, we watched the game closely. I didn’t think we were bad defensively. Schalke only had two chances in the game – one from a set piece and one from our goal kick. Almost nothing happened from open play. It’s still obvious that we didn’t create enough chances for our standards. Perhaps that had something to do with Isac’s absence, but not exclusively. It’s more to do with the way we attack. And we need to work on that. That’s our main focus for Wednesday’s game, without changing anything else.