Interview

“Defending may not be an art, but it isn’t easy either”

In an interview with HSV.de, ball-winner Nicolai Remberg talks about his love of defending, HSV’s defensive DNA and his own approach to yellow cards.

HSV.de: Rambo, last matchday brought a double change of perspective for you: you served a yellow-card suspension, so instead of being out on the pitch you spent the first half in the Nordtribüne for the first time. What was that like?

Nicolai Remberg: It was a really cool experience. The plan was for me to watch one half from there and then go down to the dressing room at half time to give the lads a few pointers as well. It was a shame I didn’t get to see a goal, which was a bit annoying. But apart from that, it was a completely different perspective and you could really see how the fans drive the team on and the moments when they try to raise the noise, like after we conceded. I really liked that. I also tried to sing along to all the songs and join in with the bouncing.

How much were you itching to be down on the pitch helping out? The extremely physical start to the game with all the tackles flying in must have been right up your street.

I always want to play, but I can accept it when I pick up a suspension. Still, in a home game and in a match like that, I’d obviously have loved to be out there. You do start itching to get involved, no matter how good it is to watch everything from a different angle.

In the end it was a 1-1 draw – the seventh point collected from a losing position and the tenth draw of the season. Are both signs of stability?

Definitely – both say a lot about the character of this team. If we go in behind at half time, you can see straight away that nobody lets their head drop. In the Bundesliga there will always be games where things aren’t quite going as well, but we know we’re always capable of levelling things up or even turning the game around. That mentality is a big strength of ours. At the same time, even after conceding, we’re able to make sure we don’t let another one in. In those situations we push hard to get forward, but we also know how important it is not to give away another goal at the back. We’ve found a good balance there.

HSV have also only conceded 13 goals in the second half of the season, a joint league during this period together with Dortmund and Stuttgart. What is the key to defending well?

You have to give your absolute all and that suits my game down to the ground. Of course, things on the ball don’t always come off – sometimes it gets away from you or the pass doesn’t reach your teammate. But defensively, you can always give 100%. That’s what I can do in my position. I can always sprint back and chase every ball.

You’re a player who defines himself through his work without the ball. Can you develop a sense of pride in defending?

Yes, definitely. If you stay solid at the back, you can nick a goal at the other end. There’s a reason people say attack wins games, defence wins titles. Of course, you can’t neglect the attacking side, but every game starts at 0-0 and it can take only a few chances to get the result you want. As a team, we’ve found a good balance in that respect.

A slightly silly question, but can anyone defend?

(laughs) Defending may not be an art, but it isn’t that easy either. Sure, I can stop anyone in the street and tell them, “Right, run there now,” but I’ve seen enough footballers who, in certain moments, just can’t find that extra bit to get there and make the challenge. Defending is a quality in itself because so much of it is about your mindset and your desire. It’s about overcoming that little voice telling you to stop and simply saying to yourself: I’m taking that last step, I’m going again. It all comes down to what’s in your head: am I fully committed to it, or am I just sort of going through the motions? In the Bundesliga, you have to be fully switched on all the time.

Which opponent is especially difficult to deal with?

I include last season in the Bundesliga as well, then Nick Woltemade really stands out. It doesn’t happen too often that players get past me repeatedly, because at some point I’ll usually put a stop to it, but he managed it quite a lot by taking the ball with his first touch and suddenly he was past me. But I could name plenty: Wirtz, Kane, Musiala. Every Bundesliga side has players who can do something special.

How do you build that kind of defensive DNA as a team? What are the differences, for example, between those first training sessions in the summer and where you are now in the second half of the season?

I have to be honest and say that right at the start I thought it was going to be quite a task and that we’d have to push each other when it came to our willingness to run. In Bundesliga 2, you have a lot of the ball and things tend to go a bit better, but it’s a different story in the Bundesliga. You build belief in a defence by putting together a run of games where you concede no goals or very few. It’s a process. Our assistant coach Richie, who focuses a lot on the defensive side, and our goalkeeping coach Sven, who is responsible for defending set pieces, often show us stats and clips so we can see how well we defend. When you watch how we all throw ourselves at the ball, you build that DNA where you don’t just have to defend, you actually enjoy it. You can see that in every player at the back, and we don’t accept it if anyone is half-hearted in our squad.

Let’s dip into the tactical side for a moment. You defend in different zones, which are marked by colours. Who actually decides those defensive zones before and during a game?

Before a game, it’s decided which zone we want to spend most of our time in and when, and in which specific moments we want to switch into another one. During the game, Sambi and I stay in touch with Merlin if anything is unclear. Of course, everyone knows the plan and helps shape it, but because of my position in the middle, I do try to take on that role and keep pushing us up. That also includes a lot of the gestures I make during games to show whether we need to push up, drop off or hold our line. I try to take charge of the coaching a bit.

Who are the main defensive anchors in the team?

When I look round on the pitch, I always feel good knowing the lads behind me are there, because they get stuck in as well and they’ve got a real presence. Of course, a lot of people praise and focus on Luka because it’s so impressive the way he dominates aerially and heads everything away, but I could name just about anyone: Capi, Warmed, Jordan or Ferro. There’s so much commitment there, and that’s what leads to strong defending and few goals conceded in the end.

If there have been issues defensively, it’s been the number of penalties and red cards. Is there an explanation for that?

Every case is different. Given away penalties for handballs is always difficult in football, because depending on your body position you can always end up looking silly. More generally, when it happens in the box it tends to come down to lapses in concentration. We’re a team that always looks to win the ball back, but that isn’t always the smartest thing to do inside your own penalty area. Sometimes we keep trying to win the ball back too often and go in for another tackle when we don’t need to. That’s an area where we need to improve. The same goes for second yellows and straight reds. We’ve spoken about it and we know we need to get it under control. Maybe it’s also part of the process you go through in your first Bundesliga season.

You’ve picked up the most yellow cards in the squad and, just like last season when you got 11, you’re already into double figures again. Are bookings simply part of your game, or do you want to cut them out?

Yes, definitely. If someone tells me I need to get fewer yellow cards, I don’t really react to it. That’s my game. I need that edge to be fully in it myself and to show the opposition that they won’t be getting it easy today. I go through every one of my yellow cards and none of them come from unfair tackles. Sometimes I might catch someone awkwardly without meaning to, but because of my position and the way I play, I’m often in situations where I have to make a foul. And the odd coming together is part of it as well. I’m not the type to walk away. I stand up for my teammates, that’s just who I am. The way I play can sometimes look more rugged than it really is. That also leads to one or two extra yellow cards now and then.

Unlike one or two of your teammates, you’ve never been sent off in the Bundesliga. How do you manage that, and is it different defending with a yellow card already to your name?

I have to praise the coaching team for this. There are coaches who get twitchy and think you have to make a change straight away after an early booking. The only time that happened to me this season was in the cup in Heidenheim, and that was clearly discussed. Otherwise the coaches trust me. I keep it in mind, I’m less likely to make a tactical foul and I play a bit more carefully. But even in Cologne, after being booked, I still went to ground for two more tackles. That’s part of my game too – I always have to be aggressive. I also try to give the coach that feeling that he can trust me.

Finally, there are six games left. What will it come down to in the battle to stay up, with what feels like half the league still involved?

We want to keep our focus on ourselves. Someone asked me recently about the run-in and whether I was worried about the quality of the teams we still have to face. I said if you go into a game scared, it never helps you. I’m actually really looking forward to matches like Sunday’s against Stuttgart, a side pushing for the Champions League with several players who are set to go to the World Cup in their squad. We’ve shown that we can take points off top teams. We can compete and we’re fully motivated to pick up the points we need over the next few games. It’s never really been my thing to work out how many points might be enough to stay up. It may sound like a typical football cliché, but sometimes it really does help to take it one game at a time. Doing the maths doesn’t get you anywhere – we’re in a good position.

And you could be in for another change of perspective at the weekend if you lead the team out as captain?

I have thought about it briefly and, as you can probably tell from the grin on my face, it would be something very special. It’s an honour. I think it’s really, really cool, but I just want to do the role justice and I don’t define myself by it.