Baumgart: “That’s what we’re working on every day”

After a two-day break from training, Steffen Baumgart and his team kicked off their preparations for this weekend’s home game against SV Wehen Wiesbaden on Tuesday (12th March). “The boys should have a couple of days to wind down sometimes,” explained the head coach with regard to the two days off. “They’ve impressed me again today,” he continued. The Rothosen impressed in various different sessions. Jean-Luc Dompe and Stephan Ambrosius – two players who the coach will have to plan without for the time being – as well as the two left-backs Miro Muheim and Noah Katterbach could however not take part and instead trained individually. At the training session, Baumgart spoke to the media about the possible lack of options at left-back at the weekend. “We have two young players in Nicolas Oliveira and William Mikelbrencis who have both already shown that they can play in this position, even though they’re not as experienced,” he explained. “It’s also possible that we’ll find a completely different solution though. We’ll wait and see how the week of training goes.”

“It’ll be about having the composure needed”

The week will be all about preparing to face an opponent who defend compactly and will leave very little space in front of their own goal. “You could tell in the last two games that we have trouble playing against opponents who sit deep,” said Baumgart. “In both games, it wasn’t the worse team that lost, but the one that tried to play football while the other one mainly just defended well. It’ll be a similar game at the weekend, because Wiesbaden defend with a lot of discipline. I even think their back five is the best defence in the league. Therefore, for us it’ll be all about finding a way to break through, to find the spaces that we failed to in the last two games, and to have the composure needed.”

“Bring the strategies from the training ground onto the pitch”

He has learnt the lessons from the last two games and discussed them with the team. “We’ll spend the whole week working on strategies that we’ll have to bring from the training ground onto the pitch.” As Baumgart emphasised again and again is his interview, having strategies “on paper doesn’t mean that they’ll be put into practice. Because you maybe don’t always manage to replicate everything on the pitch. But that’s what we’re working on every day.” HSV are looking for a second win under Baumgart when they face the solid and compact promoted side. That is certainly the clear aim. “For us it’s about giving our all to win this game,” said Baumgart. “The three points are all that matter for us and we have to go and get them.”