Rose: "Take on the challenge"

Head coach Marco Rose and sporting director Max Eberl spoke to the press ahead of Saturday’s encounter with Eintracht Frankfurt and future Borussia head coach Adi Hütter.

Marco Rose on:

…personnel: Lars Stindl will not be able to play against Frankfurt on Saturday and will probably miss the midweek game as well with a muscle strain. Aside from that, Oscar Wendt started training this week with some minor problems but is fully involved today. Yann Sommer (red card suspension), Christoph Kramer (yellow card suspension), Julio Villalba and Torben Müsel (both in recovery training) will also be unavailable.

…Saturday’s opponents: Eintracht Frankfurt are all about aggression and intensity, built on a willingness to run long distances. We won’t have a lot of time on the ball against them, so we will need to make quick and good decisions. We might also have to take the simple route forward to avoid running into their aggressive defensive line. Frankfurt defend bravely and when they win the ball back they want to get in behind quickly. They’ve got two strong forwards in Luka Jovic and Andre Silva with two strong link-up players in Amin Younes and Daichi Kamada behind them. That’s another thing that makes Frankfurt so strong – the way they link up and attack the opposition goal quickly. Filip Kostic has great pace and puts in a lot of crosses. They’re a powerful team with a lot of quality and effective tactics, both on and off the ball. That’s how they’ve been so successful this season and they will want to finish the campaign like this. So it will be a very difficult task for us, but we’re taking it on and want to win.

…Marcus Thuram’s role: Constant development is part of football, but sometimes these developments can stagnate, especially in young players. Even experienced players have spells where things don’t go so well. Marcus had a great start here at Borussia and had a fantastic first season. At the end of this season he got injured and needed an operation. After that, it took a while for us to get him back to his best. I think this was also a learning curve for Tikus. At the moment he seems to be in great shape and really enjoying his football. That took a little while, and he wasn’t happy with himself either during the spell where things weren’t running smoothly. Now we hope he can continue his current run for as long as possible and can transfer the positive energy to the other players and keep scoring and setting up goals.  

Sporting director Max Eberl on…

…the next game against Frankfurt: This game is our top priority right now. Two teams with big ambitions are going head-to-head. SGE want to book their place in next season’s Champions League and we want to keep picking up points to get into Europe.

…the procedure of appointing Adi Hütter as future head coach: After Marco announced his departure for Borussia Dortmund at the end of the season I began to look for a new coach and contacted Adi Hütter’s agent, among others. I expressed my interest straight away. Adi Hütter was our first choice all along, but we were obviously aware that he was under contract at Frankfurt and having a fantastic season with them. We then met during the international break and extensive discussions were held. It became clear that there was a lot of mutual respect and interest. I gave Adi an overview of the benefits of working for Borussia and told him about our history. The final details were then clarified last weekend. The most important thing was for Adi to speak to his club. All involved parties then agreed that we would announce the appointment on Monday. We announced it before the game against Frankfurt to be transparent – we didn’t want rumours to be floating around. I am very pleased that Adi has decided to work for us from 1 July 2021. We’ve found a great solution in him.

…head coaches‘ release clauses: Fundamentally I’m obviously always glad when players and coaches don’t have release clauses in their contracts (smirks). Still, I think it’s perfectly legitimate for really good coaches to want to keep their future options open. Even when coaches have release clauses in their contracts, it’s the negotiations with the club that are the deciding factor in the end. I understand why it’s an issue, but we’ve never complained about situations like this. I think you need to be careful about judging and accusing coaches for wanting to leave their club and take the next step. For me, release clauses are a symbol of clarity, because then you know exactly where you stand. I think it’s legitimate for coaches to have these clauses in their contract. Adi Hütter doesn’t have one with us, however, he has a normal three-year contract.

… the coach’s influence on squad building: At Borussia the head coach has a big say in squad planning – he has to be part of the decision-making process regarding which players to consider. Nevertheless, the coach’s main responsibility is working with the squad at his disposal. So the squad is also a big factor for me when choosing a new coach.

… on former Borussia player Martin Hinteregger: We acquired Martin on loan back then and were convinced of his quality. That all didn’t pan out so well then and he didn’t get much game time. We would have had to pay a lot of money for a permanent transfer and we didn’t want to do that. Martin knew that though, so we still have a good relationship with him and I’m happy about that. He’s made tremendous progress with Augsburg and Frankfurt – he’s a real leader at Eintracht now and is probably one of the best centre-backs in the Bundesliga. Mentally he is incredibly strong. He’ll not only be a real defensive force for us to reckon with on Saturday, but also pose a threat up front from set-pieces.

 

[Translate to English:] Cheftrainer Marco Rose muss am kommenden Samstag auf Yann Sommer (rotgesperrt), Lars Stindl (Muskelfaserriss) sowie Julia Villalba und Torben Müsel (beide im Aufbautraining) verzichten.
[Translate to English:] Sportdirektor Max Eberl

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