„We’re the Bundesliga side“

VfL Wolfsburg’s summer preparations are all but over. As ever, the Wolves’ first competitive fixture of the new campaign is the first round of the DFB Cup, which this season sees them travel to fourth-tier outfit FC Carl Zeiss Jena on Saturday 30 July (kick-off 18:00 CEST). Before the game, head coach Niko Kovac spoke to the media about…

…personnel: “Today in training we had 24 outfield players and four goalkeepers, so we’ll have a full squad to choose from and travel to Jena with 20 players. There’s a lot of competition in the squad and we have a lot of good players, especially in attack. On Saturday, we’ll be fielding players who I thought did best in pre-season.”

…VfL’s opponents: “We’ve obviously been watching Carl Zeiss Jena. We saw their games against FSV Zwickau and Hessen Kassel and will try to draw our conclusions from [those games]. The first game after pre-season isn’t easy for anyone – no one really knows where they stand.”

…his expectations: “Playing away at a fourth-division team is never easy, but we’re the Bundesliga side and we want to advance to the next round – we have to. That’s all that matters. We have to try to keep up the tempo from the first minute and showcase our technical abilities.”

…the DFB Cup: “I like the competition. It’s a knockout tournament where you never really know whether you’re going to stay in or not. That’s what makes it such an interesting scenario. Everyone obviously wants to go to Berlin and win the cup. It’s difficult but doable, generally speaking. We believe in ourselves.”