We gathered the thoughts of the players and coaches after Borussia’s comfortable 8-0 win over Regionalliga side FC Oberneuland in the first round of the DFB-Pokal.
Patrick Herrmann: It’s the perfect start to the season. We showed a lot of focus and desire from the start and created a lot of chances. It was a lot of fun out there because we were moving the ball around really nicely. Scoring goals is always great for any attacking player. I had only scored one DFB-Pokal goal before today, and now I’ve got two more. That will give me confidence for the next matches. It was nice to play in front of the fans again, even if there were only 300 of them, but it still lent some emotion to the game. Dortmund will obviously provide a very different challenge. Nevertheless, we will look to play our game, get stuck in, press them high and hopefully we can get a result.
Jonas Hofmann: We gave it our all and maintained our concentration. It’s still nice to score a couple of goals early on in a game like this just to settle any nerves and show the opponents that we’re not messing about. We prepared for the match very well and knew that we would have to give 100 percent from the off. The win was compulsory today, but there are still plenty of things to take away from the game for the Dortmund match. When our injured players return, we’re well placed to attack on all three fronts this season.
Assistant coach Alexander Zickler: We took the game very seriously from the first minute. The team implemented our instructions really well; they kept moving the ball and our opponents around and didn’t let them get into the game. We knew that they would try to catch us on the counter, but the lads did a great job. They combined very nicely, got in behind and scored some very good goals. We’re not happy with the first few minutes of the second half though – we made too many mistakes. All in all, we deserved to win the way we did.
FC Oberneuland head coach Kristian Arambasic: Getting to play in a stadium like this as a newly promoted fourth-tier side is an incredible experience. The game went as you would expect against a side playing in the Champions League. We knew what Gladbach are capable of, but we were still hoping to keep it 0-0 for a little longer. They went all out from the start though, so we ended up five goals down by the break. We showed courage in the second 45 and had a few chances to score ourselves, which is nice for the team. Ultimately, it was a deserved 8-0 win for them. We’re looking forward to welcoming them to Bremen for a friendly as something of a second leg.
