Pre-Match Report
Lars Ricken: “We’ve set expectations for ourselves”
Lars Ricken on the current development:
“We can be very satisfied with how things are going. We are second in the Bundesliga table. You can see the progress we’ve made, but we’re not really 100% satisfied. We could easily have had five or six more points, especially when I think about the two games in Hamburg against St. Pauli and HSV. We dropped points unnecessarily, which is annoying. We have set expectations for ourselves and want to put even more pressure on our opponents, be even more dominant and score goals.”...
.… tomorrow’s opponents Tottenham:
“It will depend on how we perform on the day. I think that currently favours us. But it’s the tenth against the eleventh in the Champions League. We both have the same number of points and the same goal difference. If anyone thinks that it’s possible to do it with less than 100%, I’m afraid I have to say that it won’t happen. We’ve lost the last four games against Tottenham. They haven’t lost a single home game in the European Cup in their last 23 matches, winning 19 of them. They currently have three wins in the Champions League, all without conceding a goal. So we can see that it’s going to be a tough nut for us to crack. We also know a few players from the Bundesliga, such as Tel, Kolo Muani and Xavi. That shows us how much quality there is in the squad. And, of course, they want to use this competition to get back on track in sporting terms.”
…the scenario:
“Of course, we now want to make up the points we are missing against Bodø/Glimt. We want to win in London because we want to reach the final against Inter. Of course, we don’t want to reach the final in order to perhaps qualify for the play-offs, but we want to reach the final against Inter in order to qualify directly for the round of 16.”