Match reaction
01.12.24
“We’re delighted with this cohesive team performance”
HSV won away at Karlsruher SC on Sunday. Coach Merlin Polzin and his side were very pleased with the result, performance and overall manner of the victory. Here’s all the reaction.
Sebastian Schonlau: This was a really important game for us. It’s not just that we’ve climbed up the table, but also that we got a result to put our poor run over the last four or five matches behind us. We managed that against a Karlsruhe side who have a lot of quality and are hard to play against. We made some tactical changes, but in the end the most important thing was that we produced on the pitch what the coaching staff asked us to. If you do that, it’s not always important whether you play with a back three or a back four. We haven’t had the results we wanted recently, so there’s a sense of relief today alongside the pride and elation. We had a clear plan and we executed it well and worked together as a team. We were dominant in attack and defended with our lives. That allowed us to get the better of KSC, and that feels really good.
Ransford Königsdörffer: I thought that today, we didn’t just play well but also deserved to win. Even if we did of course have a bit of luck with the disallowed goal. We acquitted ourselves well, were very solid and put in the hard yards. That was great. I really should have even had two goals myself early on. I’m taking the responsibility for both. I should have put the ball in the net.
"You could see how important Dompe is to the team" Daniel Elfadli
Daniel Elfadli: This was a very important away win. We’re just so happy. We’ve worked so hard on our game plan this week and looked at everything forensically. That was helpful in our situation. I also have to compliment the coaching staff, because they put so much thought into how we could perform differently. As a team, we’re just delighted that we could play like this and win the game.
On Dompe: I told him before the game what a great player he is, just so that he knows. Sometimes, I don’t think he realises that himself. You could see again today how important he is to the team.
Merlin Polzin: It was a very intensive week for us, which culminated with this very difficult game. We were aware of the size of this task, so during the week we tried to come up with a game plan. We started the game really well. I was very happy with the first 30 minutes. We were dangerous in front of goal and tried to show our quality on the pitch. Then, there was a phase when it didn’t really click. We left too many gaps. We talked about that at half time. Just after, we had a bit of a luck with the disallowed goal. But I always felt like we could cause problems in attack. We did that with the two goals. We’re delighted with the three points and even more so with this cohesive team performance.
Christian Eichner: I saw a very good HSV side, and we sadly didn’t manage to be difficult for them to play against. We gave the ball away for the first goal, which was really disappointing. I haven’t seen goals like that second we conceded very often in the 2. Bundesliga. It was just an unbelievable strike. It looked like we’d gone 2-1 up in between those goals, which could have rescued the game for us. That’s how fine the margins are in this league though. In the end, HSV are taking the three points.