Barcelona to visit Hoffenheim: "We want to be braver"

Head coach Gabor Gallai on…

…the 7-1 victory against Leverkusen.

"Things went really well for us on Sunday; we made a good start with the early opener. The goal meant that we quickly found our rhythm, and our subsequent goals then came at good times for us. We were then not alert enough in the first 10 minutes after the interval, but we seized back control of the match after scoring our fourth goal and continued to go forward. We created a lot of chances and were then rewarded in the form of more goals."

…the preparations for the home game against Barcelona.

"Our first priority after the match against Leverkusen was recovery, but in the final training session we will then pick out two or three specific things than we want to do better against Barcelona than we did in the reverse fixture last week. That will obviously only work if we manage our workload appropriately."

…the lessons learned from the 4-0 loss in Barcelona.

"One major element is that we want to be more courageous from the start. We were missing that in Barcelona, especially in the opening half. In addition, we learned from the first game that really every positional error gets punished, which means we need to be even more consistent off the ball. That is surely going to be a long time once again, even though we also aim to have longer spells of possession ourselves too. We want to be more clinical with the counter-attacks that we had in Barcelona, because in that game we did not manage to play ourselves in on goal with the final ball. Furthermore, we want to show greater resistance to our opponent's pressing. We're expecting to see a lot of spectators at the Dietmar-Hopp-Stadion; that will perhaps give us some tailwind and will really spur us on. It'll certainly be a great atmosphere under the floodlights."

…the personnel.

"As was the case on Sunday, only Paulina Krumbiegel and Isabella Hartig will be unavailable for us as it stands."

The reverse fixture against FC Barcelona:

Matchday 3 of the UEFA Women's Champions League group stages saw TSG visit FC Barcelona last Wednesday, where head coach Gabor Gallai's charges were deservedly condemned to a 4-0 (3-0) defeat by the impressively strong reigning continental champions. In the first period in particular, the Hoffenheim ladies could scarcely relieve themselves from the pressure applied by the Spanish league leaders, who launched wave after wave of attack. Jenni Hermoso (5) and Alexia Putellas (19, 33) found the net before the interval. TSG did have a greater share of ball possession in the second period, looking braver and more alert, but overall did not offer enough in return against FC Barcelona, for whom Marta Torrejón struck the fourth and final goal in the 74th minute of a predominantly one-sided match at the Estadi Johan Cruyff.

Match facts and statistics »