“We’re fuelled by our desire to go toe-to-toe with the best in the business”

The international break is over and everyone has returned from their national sides, meaning HSV can put the next few days to good use in preparing for what promises to be the game of the weekend. The Rothosen travel to the Allianz Arena on Saturday (13th September, 18:30 CEST) to take on record champions FC Bayern München. The toughest of challenges awaits Merlin Polzin and his team, but despite this, they are going into the game full of positive anticipation, according to the head coach himself. In a press conference on Thursday, Polzin spoke about...

...the players available to him: Yussuf Poulsen and Jordan Torunarigha both trained individually today and it’s a case of seeing where they’re at by the weekend. We also need to just wait a bit for Jean-Luc Dompe and decide whether or not it makes sense to bring him in, as he hasn’t been 100% healthy this season and hasn’t been able to train fully recently. Sambi Lokonga is another player who we need to get to know a bit more, in terms of how much strain he’s able to handle. We’ll have a look and see if it’s right for him to be in the squad at the weekend. Other than that everyone else is available. Luka Vuskovic and Fabio Vieira will definitely be in the squad, but we don’t know yet whether they’ll be in the starting line-up or on the bench. 

“We don’t want to concern ourselves with the past, but rather embrace the chance to create new stories”

...HSV’s approach to the game: We’re sort of a second favourite in this game. Nevertheless, we want to win, as we are competitors. We also want the game to be a positive, both in the way we play and the result. For us, it’s a special game against one of the best teams in Europe. In our analysis sessions we’ve noticed a couple of things that we want to address specifically, which we believe will bring us success. To do that we need to be compact and defend diligently, while also playing higher up when we don’t have the ball. When we do have the ball, it’ll be all about moving up the pitch with purpose and intent.

...the special history behind this game: There’s not a lot we can do about the things that have happened in previous games between HSV and Bayern. We don’t want to concern ourselves with the past, but rather embrace the chance to create new stories. Our confidence in our own abilities has been building all week and will be at its peak by the weekend. We’ll give it our all, and our goal is clear: We want to play the game our way, even if it is against a very, very strong opponent. We also want to make sure it’s loud in that away section, where our fans support us incredibly at every away game. We will give our all for the 8,000 HSV fans in the stadium, everyone watching on TV and the hundreds of thousands of people that support us. We’re fuelled by our desire to go toe-to-toe with the best in the business – it’s exactly what we’ve been working for.