Post-Match Report
Reactions: "We've taken another step forwards"
Lars Ricken (to Ruhr Nachrichten): "We called for victories and now we have registered two wins in two games. We have delivered. It's important that we now have our self-confidence back. You could see in the first period that we did not win the decisive challenges, especially in attack. Niko Kovac made the right tactical tweaks in the first half and then especially in the second half."
Sebastian Kehl (in the mixed zone): "It was clear to us that we would definitely get chances the longer the game went on. And we knew that we would have to show resistance today. And that's what we did. In the end, we highly deserved to win. What we wanted to achieve through the change of coach was to become stable once again. The team took another step forwards today. You can tell that things are becoming a bit more natural in one or two places and that the processes fit better, even if not everything was good. That said, the first priority here is to compete. St. Pauli again tried to use the means at their disposal and were very physical. Our goal is to influence our situation through our games, through our results. We'll see about everything else. We still have a lot of opponents ahead of us in the coming weeks."
Niko Kovac (at the press conference): "We're satisfied with the result. We got exactly what we expected in the first half: St. Pauli were very aggressive and went forward in a direct manner. We had difficulties in building the play. We didn't find the right solutions. During the break, we switched from a back three to a back four, which brought our full-backs into the game much more and gave us control over the match. We told the lads that whichever team scores the first goal will be heading for victory. My compliments to them: they first showed resistance, then held their own and ultimately won the game clearly and deservedly."
Nico Schlotterbeck (in the mixed zone): "It was important to go in at half-time with the score at 0-0. There have already been games – like the ones in Kiel and in Bochum – where you fall behind and then it becomes difficult. It was clear that it would be like it was in Lisbon and that the game would open up a bit more after the score became 1-0. After that, we played a controlled game and deserved to win. We're more compact, we're more cohesive, we're not giving as much away. In Bochum and against Stuttgart, it felt like we were scoring the goals ourselves. It must be Borussia Dortmund's aspiration to keep many clean sheets."
Karim Adeyemi (in the mixed zone): "I'm happy that I scored a goal and even happier that we won. I've built up more self-confidence in the last few games, which have been pretty decent. There's definitely more to come. I will build on this. I want to score lots of goals and rack up lots of assists for Dortmund."
Gregor Kobel (in the mixed zone): "If we defend well as a team, we usually do score a goal ourselves too. It's always a team effort to keep a clean sheet. It's not just each individual at the back who can have an impact on that. Four clean sheets in five matches – that's a great record to build on. Let's keep going in this vein, step by step. We haven't achieved much yet, but it's a good start." (br)
