"We are growing ever closer as a team"

Sambi Lokonga: We started superbly and went ahead early on. I am pleased to help the team out by scoring my first goal. Today was a lot of fun. We showed great intensity and put the coaches’ plan of action into effect very well. On top of that, the fans were incredible and made for such an amazing atmosphere – it was louder than in the Premier League, if I’m being honest. What unbelievable support!

Daniel Elfadli: The fans drove us on today and I’m pleased that we were able to repay that with a good performance. I thought we were really solid and compact. You can see that we know how we want to go about things, that we play with consistency and have plenty of quality in this team. That’s what we hope to keep doing.

"We delivered precisely the game plan that the coaching staff had determined for us" Daniel Heuer Fernandes

Jonas Meffert: We have decided to go down a new path and will do so with unity and resolve. This path has not been easy and we lost many games during pre-season but we needed that in order to learn. That choice is now paying off after things slowly got better – we continued to develop and are currently making very rapid progress. We have brought in a lot of quality, as you can see, and we are growing ever closer as a team. Today, we stuck very closely to the plan laid out by the coaching staff, and the brilliantly worked goals and great atmosphere made for a lot of fun today.

Daniel Heuer Fernandes: We delivered precisely the game plan that the coaching staff had determined for us. We know that Mainz make good runs forward and press well, giving their opposition little room to work in. Therefore, we opted to go about things somewhat differently in contrast to the past few weeks, hitting many long passes and feeding off second balls. I am really pleased with how we went about things in attack. The way the game panned out after the two early goals helped us. We gave a great showing throughout the 90 minutes today.

Nicolas Capaldo: We delivered another great team performance today. We are becoming ever more compact and teams are finding it tricky to score against us. I am always open to playing in every position and if the team needs me to do that, like today, then I will step up to help out. It was my first game in this role but it went well and the other lads gave me great help in doing that.

"If we all remain on the same page then we can enjoy plenty of success" Merlin Polzin

Merlin Polzin: We are really happy about today’s performance and the final result, too. We began the game well and put much of what we had hoped to into fruition. From the off, we wanted to show that we are to be reckoned with. When effective work is done in the lead up to the game by the coaching staff, analysts and the squad, then it makes the game all the easier. We also experienced Mainz’s quality at times during the first half and we did not manage to close down some dangerous areas, which did not please me quite so much. That was something we spoke about at half time. However, the goal right after the break sealed the win and then everyone that came on delivered great energy in order to get the clean sheet over the line. I was happy about that. If we all remain on the same page then we can enjoy plenty of success but not doing that won’t get you anywhere in the Bundesliga. It all worked out today and I’m therefore very pleased.

Bo Hendriksen: We started very badly and at 2-0, the game was all but over for us with 10 minutes played. HSV were the better team in every regard today and they therefore deserved the win. In the opening stages, we could not have won more than 10% of our challenges and you cannot win any game if that is the case. I think it’s very beneficial for us to have the international break coming up now.