“He Could Start. He’s Ready”

Kicking off the official season!

On Saturday (3:30PM CEST / 9:30 ET) our season starts with the first round match in the DFB Pokal against Third Division team Rot-Weiss Essen. As usual, there was a press conference beforehand with our head coach Marco Rose.

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How does our manager fell about the preparation? Which players are available in Essen? And how does Marco assess our opponent? This is what Marco Rose says before our first official match in Essen:
 

Availability List Update

• Last Tuesday, Castello Jr. got back from the Olympic Games in Paris, where he helped France secure the silver medal, straight into team training.
   
• Eljif Elmas, Chad Bitshiabu (both with minor injuries) and Christoph Baumgartner (knee injury) should be reporting back to training next week.
   
• Assan Ouedraogo, who had to interrupt his preparation for several days, was examined more thoroughly after returning from the US Tour. The studies revealed he had suffered a knee injury in the USA. He is expected to be out of action for several weeks.
   
• Xaver Schlager is currently rehabilitating an ACL tear suffered in May. How our box-to-box midfielder is feeling through his recovery, you can check out for yourselves in this interview.
   
• Yussuf Poulsen won’t be available following his double booking suspension in our last Pokal match against VfL Wolfsburg.

Marco Rose on…

… preparing this match

• “We are well prepared with everything that needed a bit of working on. We know that we cannot be at 100% quite yet.

  We’re missing a few players. Baumi, Chad and Eljif are expected to return at the end of next week. A few of the guys obviously haven’t had much training time yet, but we feel like we’ve been able to make the most of the time available to prepare.”

… Rot-Weiss Essen

• “Essen is the epitome of passion and definitely a household name on the football map in Germany. It’s a tough task. We have analyzed our opponents closely.

  I know the coach Christoph Dabrowski from when we did our coaching license together. Christoph works compactly and well against the ball, but also has an idea of what to do with the ball. In the friendly against Leverkusen they had clear plays and also held well under pressure.”

Marco Rose on…

… RBL-signing Antonio Nusa

• “We paid close attention to Antonio Nusa for a long time. We have consciously made the decision to go for him. Yesterday’s training confirmed that he has an exceptionally good first touch and an outstanding understanding of the game for his age! We certainly still have to work on other things, because at the end of the day he is still a teenager. He can still get a better assessment, assist goals, score goals. That is still on our agenda.

  He’ll be adapting to everything calmly at first. He’s more of a quiet person. But he’ll quickly realise that in our group you can let yourself go, be there, join in and be yourself. Then we’ll probably get to know him from a different angle.”

… Olympic silver-medalist Castello Jr. Lukeba

• “Castello can be brought on immediately. He’s in top form, has played games and has also had a bit of a holiday. He is ready. Of course he told the other guys about the games and is back here as a medal winner. We are very proud of him! Joining the French Olympic team was definitely worth it.

  I hope his development continues to be as positive as it was last season. He is a young player who was thrown in at the deep end and we quickly noticed that he could make it work! He’s at the level we need him to be and has also given us stability. Castello is very good at opening the play and in one-on-one duels.

  I hope he picks up where he left off and continues to develop. Many of our players are now entering their second year at RB Leipzig. We have high ambitions. And to achieve this we need every player to be at the top level, including him.”

Marco Rose on…

… the goalkeeper dilemma

• “Our goalkeeping coach Freddie Gössling sat down with Peter Gulacsi and Maarten Vandevoordt and confirmed Pete as the starting keeper. But both Pete and Maarten performed incredibly during the pre-season. Maarten’s qualities are evident and we are happy to have both of them in this position.

  One thing is sure: Pete will begin the season as our first choice keeper and will be in goal against Essen, also because it is our first game. But we will keep looking for and finding opportunities to give Maarten playing time, because we are also confident in his skills.”