“That was a classic Pokal scrap”

Ransford Königsdorffer: In the end the only thing that matters is that we won and will be back in the next round. We struggled for a long time, but the motto of the DFB-Pokal which is written on the match ball, “the winner remains”, is something we drew inspiration from. After the 70th minute, we were able to up the tempo and were able to turn it around in the end.

Gui Ramos: The point is that we got to the next round. It is clear though that that wasn’t our best game. Our opponents played very well today and I am delighted that I was able to help us win despite that. Towards the end we looked to play more crosses as we have players who are good in the air. It’s nice that it worked.

“My team came together and believed in themselves until the very end” Merlin Polzin

Miro Muheim: Today was not what we expected. We didn’t play our best game, that much is clear, but cup games are always different and today was a classic Pokal scrap. In the end, we did it; we made lots of steps forward during pre-season and now look forward to the start of the Bundesliga.

Merlin Polzin: We would like to give our biggest compliments to FK Pirmasens for their organisation of this game and to the team for their performance which demanded everything of us. At the start, we were unable to dominate such a deep-lying opponent; we were not forceful enough and ended up making things unnecessarily difficult for ourselves. My team came together and believed in themselves until the very end. Along with our set-piece prowess, this is the main positive to take from this game. We shouldn’t apologise for getting into the next round of the cup and we look forward to the start of the Bundesliga season next weekend.