Seoane ahead of #BVBBMG: “We need a complete team performance”

Head coach Gerardo Seoane answered journalists’ questions ahead of the Foals’ Bundesliga game at Borussia Dortmund on Saturday (15:30 CET). Here are his most important quotes.

Gerardo Seoane on…

…the personnel situation: We’re very pleased that all of the international players have come back fit and well and put in good performances in their games. There’ve been no additional injuries and Jordan’s also returned to the squad. He took part in all of our training sessions this week. He’s sometimes done a little bit reduced training, but that was just a precautionary measure to manage his load. He’s 100 percent available again.

…training during an international break: An important part of it is to keep track of the players who are away. We stay in contact, know how they’re feeling and review their performances. For the other players, it’s about finding the right kind of training. You can use the time to work on the physical aspects. This time, we didn’t play a friendly, because there was more tiredness in their legs. In the second week, we’ve trained different formations. And of course, individual development is always important, especially for the young players.

…lessons from the Wolfsburg game for the match in Dortmund: What we definitely have to bring is a willingness to work defensively. That’s even more important away at a top team. In certain situations, it’s about improving compactness, for example the first line of pressing. We have to keep the spaces narrow, because the opponent has quality between the lines. Against Wolfsburg, we had some good moments on the counter and good phases of ball possession. If you can force mistakes, it’s important to counterattack. At the same time, you want to have control of the game in certain phases. To survive and get a good result in Dortmund, and against top teams in general, you don’t just need a good phase of play, but a complete team performance.

…Borussia’s record against BVB: The statistics aren’t important. We know it’s a difficult task to play in Dortmund. We’ll have to go toe-to-toe with the opposition from the start through aggression and compactness, but also courage with the ball. We’ll need the course of the game to go in our favour and a certain resilience to stay in the game and get through difficult moments.

…Jordan’s return and competition with Tomáš Čvančara: We’ll need both types of player on Saturday. Both embody the central striker role, but they have different qualities. Tomáš has made a good impression. The goal against Wolfsburg lifted a bit of a weight off his shoulders. Jordan has also put in very good performances, like in the game at Freiburg where he had to come off injured. We’ll need both, in whatever order.

BVB’s situation: When two teams are almost flawlessly racing ahead at the top of the table, a hole opens up straight away when they go out of form. Until the defeats to Bayern and Stuttgart, Dortmund were unbeaten in the Bundesliga and against Newcastle, you could see how the team deliver on the international stage. Dortmund are a team who play attacking football and want to have a lot of control. When you play attacking football, you give away a certain amount of space on the counter. It’ll be important that we get out of pressure situations in order to play in this space. Of course, we want to bring our quality on the ball and force them to defend. We know it’ll be a difficult task. We want to use our weapons and are willing to do a lot of defending and bring aggression onto the pitch.