Rose: “Creating goal-scoring opportunities with good football”

In the pre-match press conference ahead of Saturday’s home game against Union Berlin (15:30 CEST), Marco Rose discussed a number of topics. Borussia’s head coach on...

...player availability: Marcus Thuram and Alassane Plea have both made progress since last weekend. Tikus has made two appearances now and has trained this week. Lasso played half an hour in Dortmund and has also got another week of training under his belt. Nevertheless, both are still in the process of reintegration. We have introduced Breel Embolo to some of the sessions this week, but he hasn’t been in full team training yet, so it will be touch and go whether he can play until the weekend. We don't expect Denis Zakaria to be back until after the international break.

...this Saturday’s opponents: Union Berlin are a difficult team to play. I like the club and the way they set up. They always give it everything and play intense, aggressive football that makes life difficult for their opponents. On top of this, the Berliners have also developed special ways of causing problems for the opposition. We’ll have to keep up our concentration and defend well in front of our goal. At the other end of the pitch, we’re aiming to keep their defence busy and create goal-scoring opportunities with good football, which Union will do their best to disrupt I’m sure.

...the return of fans to BORUSSIA-PARK: It’s completely understandable to me that the club haven’t sold all 10,000 available tickets at this point. That doesn’t have anything to do with us or the club, but because people have to get used to the new situation. For instance, you can’t sit right next to your family and friends and you can’t have a beer like normal, which are special circumstances that reflect the current situation. But I’m sure that every fan who has bought a ticket will be looking forward to coming back to the stadium and will bring a good atmosphere. We’re more than happy that we can finally have 10,000 people at BORUSSIA-PARK again, and we’re also pleased that we’re one small step closer to normality. We’ll do our best to give the fans something to cheer for of course!

...lessons learned from the Dortmund game: We definitely didn’t play as badly as the three-goal loss would suggest, but the fact is that we did lose 3-0 and there were reasons for that. At the start of this week, we discussed why what we set out to do didn’t work out at various points in the match. But we’ve moved on and now the focus is just on the game against Union Berlin. It’ll be a completely different type of game obviously, so training this week has just been focused on how we can be successful on Saturday.

...injuries: We don’t want to make this into a big issue, but when a team like ours loses four of its most important players, naturally it’ll be reflected out on the pitch at a certain point. Despite this, we played well in Dortmund and the boys worked hard and gave their all to try and win. That’s why we’re not complaining, but of course we'll be happy when Denis Zakaria, Marcus Thuram, Alassane Plea and Breel Embolo are back again soon. 

24.09.2020

Weigl: “I have to take on responsibility”

Borussia midfielder Julian Weigl talks about who influenced his career to help him become the footballer he is today.

27.11.2022

World Cup: France qualify for the round of 16 as Thuram comes on as a substitute

The French national team have become the first team to book their place in the knockout stage after beating Denmark 2-1 in their second game, with Marcus Thuram playing for the side.

26.11.2022

US draw 0-0 with England

The United States men’s national team drew 0-0 against England in their second group stage match at the World Cup. Joe Scally did not feature.

26.11.2022