FIRST TEAM
09/15/2016

We have to be switched on against Wolfsburg

Saturday’s tie against VfL Wolfsburg (15:30 CEST) will be TSG’s first of three in just eight days. achtzehn99.de caught up with Julian Nagelsman to look ahead to the encounter with the “Wolves”.

Nagelsman on...

... the opposition.

Wolfsburg are a strong team with very good individual players and interesting new signings, who in some part are already playing an important role in their side. They're dangerous from set-pieces, have many good attacking players and haven’t yet conceded a goal. We’ll have to be very switched on against them.

... the squad.

Apart from Pirmin Schwegler who’ll be out for a while, all the players are available. Eduardo Vargas has also returned to training as he has recovered from his cold. Therefore I can choose from the whole squad.

... the current situation

The spectacles of the last two matches, particularly the Mainz game, were certainly better for the fans than me as the coach. I don’t mind seeing attacking spectacles but at the back it should be quieter. We have to do that better and make it harder for the opposition to create chances and score goals. After scoring six goals you have to have more than two points on the board.

In Mainz we did a lot of small things wrong – it wasn’t that we made complicated tactical mistakes as a team. It was about lacking security at the back, about recognising dangerous situations. We defended well in the Mainz half but not in ours, where we allowed too many one-on-one situations – above all in the last line of defence. We showed these mistakes to the team this week and worked on them in training - during the week everything went well. We do however keep peaking on a Wednesday and then haven’t been able to transfer this to the Bundesliga at the weekend.

Football has become more complex in the past few years, above all through the new data and information available to us. Many teams today defend very well and you need solutions to create chances and score goals. When in possession though, you still have to bear in mind you that can lose the ball. Despite all this complexity however, you can’t forget the simple things, even as a coach, this means defending solidly and winning tackles. You have to work on these things again and again so mistakes don’t creep in. It’s also important to be committed in tackles - at the start of the game in Mainz we lacked that.

Previous match-ups:

There have been 16 encounters between the two teams in the Bundesliga. The “Wolves” have come out on top in half of these games while Hoffenheim have won five and the points have been shared on three occasions. In the last encounter, Andrej Kramaric scored the goal of the day in a 1-0 win. The victory which lives most fondly in the memory though is TSG’s 6-2 victory against Wolfsburg in the 2013/14 season.

The opposition’s form:

A victory in the league, a victory in the cup and a draw against Köln on the second matchday - Wolfsburg come into the tie unbeaten this season. The team from Lower Saxony have a particularly good defensive record this season, conceding just one goal in their three competitive games. Also, in attack, the visitors boast players like Daniel Didavi, Julian Draxler and Mario Gomez.

The key duel:

Uth, Kramaric, Wagner vs. Draxler, Didavi, Gomez - both teams have three very talented attacking players who know where the goal is and can decide a game. Who’ll come out on top on the day? That’ll be decided on Saturday at 15:30.

 

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