The win against Bayern showed that you can hold your own in a footballing sense, what impressed you the most about your team?
“I thought that, especially in the first half, of course you have to defend a lot when you play against Bayern but it’s also about seizing the moments, the right moments at the right time. To create chances, to defend a little bit further away from your own goal and to have possession of the ball because if you’re just in defence mode and standing in your penalty box, at some time you’re just going to crack. Especially in the first half we were very brave. We had moments when we were pressing Manuel Neuer and pressing very high, standing with our back five on the half-way line of the pitch. We also had moments when we played out from the back. We need these moments; you need to create situations when it’s Bayern who are running after the ball and they have to think about how they are going to defend against you. Otherwise, it’s going to be too long, the 90 minutes just in defending mode. It was also clear for us that at some point in the second half our power and energy levels will drop a little bit and it’s about staying ahead and defending your own goal. The first half was very very good when you consider what we wanted to see from the guys tactically.”
How do you see the relegation battle with your rivals?
“There are a lot of teams who are fighting, Schalke are relegated already so there are two spots and six teams and the way the results have been coming the last couple of weeks, it’s only getting tighter. The teams who were far ahead like Bremen and Augsburg have been losing and the teams who were far behind like us or Bielefeld, we have been winning and gathering points. Everything is compact now in the table, very close together, with three, for us four games, for Hertha six more games. It’s
going to go right down to the last game.”
What’s most important in a relegation battle?
“You have got six teams so there are a lot of games to be played on a Friday, sometimes you play on Saturday and then there are also games on Sunday so you can always look over your shoulder and think about what the other teams are doing and wonder if they are going to win. If they pick up one point there then we need three points there. Having a lot of focus, that’s not about yourself but focussing on the other five teams, but you still have a job to do yourself. Even though it’s difficult it’s about
focussing on yourself, what can we do better? How can we improve and carry out the things that are most important for us? At the end of the day, you can of course watch the other teams’ games but you can’t influence what they are doing so you have to spend as little energy as you can on the things you can’t control.”
How do you prepare your team? To what extent do you have to take some of the pressure/fear away from the players?
“I have to do it as well, of course, I’ve been doing it for three and a half months. Our situation is different to the one in Bremen and Augsburg when you thought maybe you were already safe. We were coming from behind and had nothing to lose. We had a different approach to the whole thing so my assignment has been different to the coaches in the other clubs. I came from a seemingly hopeless positon in the table and it was about creating a platform, a basis for how we could work and how we
wanted to be and not focus on how the situation looked in the table. I was very clear about what I wanted to see from my players from day one and that hasn’t changed. We are still trying to put those things together in our every-day work and to focus on these things. It didn’t matter if we had six points, 17 or now 34, it’s still the things we want to improve and the things we have been showing in a lot of games. It’s about telling the players about the quality they have but also the quality they have as a
team.”
An impressive run! What do you make of it?
“Of course, it’s very positive, it’s more than we could have hoped for. I didn’t think we would be in such a positive situation in the table that we are right now, but I’ve stressed from day one that this fight against relegation is only the first step for Mainz. We corrected a couple of things in the short term and were also very successful in doing that but in the structure in the club we have to work on certain things, so we are not in this situation in the next couple of years, that’s very important. The first part of the mission has succeeded, we’re not through with it yet but the way we have presented ourselves and been playing, the first step is very positive. We want to avoid being in this position every year, so we need to work on the structure of the club, the identity of the club because it needs work.”
There were a few changes, your best attacker, Mateta, was sold. Da Costa and Kohr, amongst others, were added. Was there a key moment which you can attribute your success to?
“It was an ongoing process, of course you have a key moment with the win against Leipzig at home. The first three games we didn’t win but then we had the game against Leipzig when we saw not only could we win but we were able to play a very good game against a top team and we were able to win. That’s very important for me as a coach, that the things that I had been preaching in the first couple of weeks, you need to have these successes, these experiences and I also have to have the confirmation that what I’m telling the guys can have a positive influence and they see that it can actually pay off if we go with these things this guy is telling us.
That was very important, not only because of the points but also the experience. Other than that it’s been the ongoing process of every-day work, trying to incorporate the things that all the people who are working here with me and the players are trying to do and get better at and trying to create a strong group because without the group and collective thinking, it’s always been like this, Mainz would have no chance of staying in the Bundesliga.”
If you win in Berlin, you’ll be the second best form team since the midseason break. You have stabilised the team, made it a team again. What exactly have you done?
“I participated in a couple of team-building sessions, I have fond memories of that! We were limited in that sense but it’s working with people. It’s giving the time to be interested in what kind of people not only what kind of football players I have in the dressing room and around me in general. You can’t fake that, I mean you can go travelling in the mountains and experience things together, that will also form a team but it’s time invested in each other, not just pretending that you’re interested
in the players and the person but having a real authentic interest in what kind of people you’re dealing with every day. You have to use time, you have to be in the dressing room, when they’re here you have to invest time with them. That was what we had at our disposal so we used that.
I’m sitting in my office now but I like to think I’m a coach that, when the players are here, I am down there with them more, talking about the game, talking about everything, having a lot of one-on-ones. Of course, we had a lot of dinners together as a group but we couldn’t do much more than that so we used the things that were allowed.”
You have often managed to pick up points against teams at the top end of the table, Leipzig, Dortmund, Gladbach, Bayern, what makes you so strong against these teams?
“It’s a nice feeling to play against the best and to be able to come away with a result and see that you can compete but in general the Bundesliga is a very competitive league and where we were in the table, every game was a highlight for us because we needed the points. We couldn’t separate ‘now we are playing Dortmund, that has a special importance’ or ‘now we are playing Augsburg, that has a difference’. Our approach to every game was the same. I told the players if we reach our maximum level then we are also able to perform against the best teams and maybe get a result.
They have seen this as well and I think the group is strong not only the group but the quality we are showing is better than the first half of the season. The players agreed but they also knew that they had a lot to make up for that they didn’t do in the first half of the season. They have been putting in a lot of work because they were the first to put up their hands and say ‘we haven’t been performing well enough, we haven’t been a good team so now we want to do things differently’. When you talk about characteristics of the mentality, that’s what characterises this group.”
You played here yourself for a long time and also worked as a youth-team coach. How did it feel in January when you moved back here from Salzburg?
“It was a special feeling, I was here for seven years as a player and five years as a youth coach, I had different coaching jobs here. I went away to Salzburg to get new inspiration and new influences. I was actually quite settled there and thought the future for me was to be somewhere else then suddenly I got the call from Christian Heidel and the world was turned around again. I had to consider whether it was the right thing for me to do to come back. Did the assignment fit in with the kind of person I am and not just think ‘now I’ve been offered a Bundesliga job so now I can write on my résumé that now I’m a Bundesliga coach’. For me it’s very important to see that the way I am as a person will fit with how the club is and how the situation is and how they want to be in the future. I needed a couple of days, of course I was very excited but I’m not a
person who makes a quick decision, so I took my time. At the end though I saw it as a challenge that would fit well with me as a person but also keeping in mind that it’s not just about getting relegated this season but it’s about a process that we want for the next couple of years.”
You also played under Jürgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel here at Mainz, what did you take from these coaches?
“A lot. I was in a lucky position in my career that I had some amazing people and I always say that as a person you’re standing on the shoulders of others, of the experiences that you had with other people. These two guys had an important role but I also had youth coaches, I had teachers, my parents, you learn from everyone. The way to approach football changed when I had these two people as coaches. I didn’t have Klopp all that long but he still impressed me with how he was as a person, the
whole approach, the charisma, all these things. It wasn’t just a way to carry a team on his back but a whole city. Every game we played at home he was directing how the spectators were supposed to be. He was a very charismatic person who was interested in everyone, it was a joy to watch.
Thomas is a different person. He’s an amazing coach, he’s maybe the one I’m more influenced by because I had him for five years. He’s extremely innovative in the way he thinks, creative way of coaching, training. Always thinking about new things, about how he can influence the team in a better way. I always tell the same story, the training exercises we had in the first year, I don’t think we had a single one again in the last year, the fifth year I was there. He kept it interesting for everyone. I know
everyone didn’t always approve of his style but most of the guys know they were better football players and they evolved as people as well when they had him as coach. A lot of things. I don’t think without those two guys that I’d be sitting in the coach’s seat right now.”
Thomas Tuchel plays innovative, possession football with counter-pressing elements. Jürgen Klopp plays full-throttle football, sometimes called heavy-metal football. How would you describe your football style?
“It’s a lot of the things you said, I want to play full-throttle, I want to give the spectators something to watch when they come into the stadium. I want to have a courageous approach to the game so even though you play in Mainz you want to influence the game in a positive way. I don’t want to just stand in a block three meters from my own goal and defend, not all the time at least. There are situations when you have to do that in a game. I want to improve our game with the ball, so we also have solutions there. To sum it up I want power football, but I want to control every phase of the game, whether it’s a transition phase, with the ball or against the ball it’s control and every player knows what their assignment is in certain situations. I know in football there are 1,000 new situations every game but generally that’s what I’m looking for. I don’t want the spectators to come into the stadium and just think about winning or losing, I want to give them an experience where they see 11 guys who want to perform and get something positive out of the game and not just trying to avoid stuff all of the time. We are in the entertainment business and it’s our obligation to entertain.”
How do you see the future at Mainz? Where do you see Mainz next season?
“I signed a long contract, I signed for three and a half years because it was important to me that we look at how we want to be in 18-24 months as well. That’s the basic assignment here. I know we have a lot of challenges with Covid at the moment so we can’t have any fans but at the end of the day I would consider my most important assignment to have a full stadium at Mainz, to have people who can identify with the team that’s playing in Mainz because it’s not just Mainz the club, it’s the city’s team
here and the people who live here should see that as well. I’d like that on Saturday at half past three people should look forward to coming into the stadium and see the people who share the same devotion to this club so we can create an identity where people can say they are proud to be Mainz fans. Also when we are 12th or 14th or playing against relegation we still have a unity and identity that we know is going to be the same, no matter what the results say.”
Which of the teams in the relegation fight was the trickiest game for you?
“We haven’t played against Hertha yet but we have played the other teams. They are very different teams, I’d say Augsburg because we lost against Augsburg, that wasn’t a very pleasant game, they are very compact and defensively very solid. They are different though, we played against Cologne and Cologne were the best team with the ball from a football perspective.
It isn’t surprising for me that they have been getting results lately.
Bielefeld, although it sounds funny to say this after they lost five-nil, were difficult to break down in the games before that, they only conceded two goals in the four games before that. Every team has their strengths, every game we played was a close game. We lost against Augsburg so I would say them, but all the other games were very tight games. Different teams, different qualities.”
