Jürgen Klopp: "TSG’s plan is crystal clear"

Jürgen Klopp on...

… his expectations.

It will be a proper game of football. The main difference between this game and the first leg is the perception of Hoffenheim in England. Lots of people were surprised at how good they are. I wasn’t surprised, I knew their quality. It’s now half-time in the tie and we have to adjust some parts of our game to ensure we progress. In the first leg, we came away with a pretty good result, one that was probably better than expected. We won in Hoffenheim, where many teams in the recent past have not been able to. Tomorrow it won’t be about who plays the nicest football. It’s purely about who wins and who advances to the Champions League group stages.

... respect.

Respect is really important in football. It plays a big role in how you prepare for an opponent. As managers you’ve got to demonstrate to the whole team how the opponent can hurt you. And Hoffenheim have lots of weapons to do that. I can only compliment Julian Nagelsmann and his coaching staff on that. They have a crystal-clear plan. They play good football. They control the game from the back. They like having the ball and passing it about. They play the ball into the channels well, always have lots of players in the box and make good runs off the ball. They are a very good attacking team.

... the possibility of penalties.

We wouldn’t want it to get to that stage considering how hard we worked to get a result from the first leg. But we want to progress in whichever way possible. We haven’t and won’t focus on that in training but the boys take enough penalties in training as it is.

... Anfield.

We need every fan behind us tomorrow. Everyone has to be ready to fight, on the pitch and in the stands. Anfield has got to help us.

Joel Matip on...

... the first leg and the lessons they learnt from it.

Hoffenheim played really well attacking-wise in the first leg. They challenged us a lot. Therefore the main objective tomorrow will be just to stop and frustrate them. We want to prevent them from creating as many opportunities as possible.

... the balance of the tie.

Even though we got a good result last week, it will be a really tough game for us. It’s sort of like a final – that makes it special. We’re playing at home and we want to progress but it won’t be easy. The statistics like a German team not having won here for 40 years won’t help us on the pitch and Hoffenheim definitely won’t care about stats like that. We are confident after our good start to the season, but not overconfident. We’ve got to fight and give it our all.

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