“Come together as a team”

Niklas Stark speaks at the training camp in Schladming about the team’s aims, new recruits and tactical flexibility.

Despite being far from home, it’s business as usual for the Hertha players. The energy-sapping training sessions, the accommodation in Schladming, and certainly the press meetings with journalists from Berlin aren’t out of the ordinary. After lunch yesterday, the players answered questions from the floor, speaking about their personal aims, Berlin, and the season ahead. Niklas Stark started, with his most important thoughts, summarised by herthabsc.de.

Niklas Stark on...

...his wishes and dreams: “Making the national team is not my main aim, even if the thought is in the back of my mind. I can only get a call-up based on my performances for Hertha, so I´m going to give my all for the team so that we’re successful. If it’s not going well for Hertha, I definitely won’t be thinking about a call-up.”

...mistakes: “Whenever we make them as defenders, it’s serious most of the time. Only as a goalkeeper is it even worse. I don’t let myself get worried for too long reflecting on my mistakes, otherwise they stay on my mind and put me off. I always try to stay positive. Last season there were both good games and bad games. Now it’s important for us to come together as a whole team.”

...new recruits: “We’ve recruited good players, and definitely got stronger as a result. Of course we had a strong squad in previous seasons, but unfortunately we didn’t always manage to show our quality on the field. If we succeed in doing that this season, it will be a good one for us.”

...the expectations of Pál Dárdai: “The manager expects a lot from me, and that’s a good thing. After all, he’d have no faith in me otherwise. I’d like to play my part so that we’re solid at the back again and have more possession.”

...tactical flexibility: “I think it’s good to essentially have another playing system that we can fall back on. It’s a different question of course whether we change it every game. It’s certainly different playing in a back three as opposed to a back four, precisely because we don’t know the first system very well still, so we have to talk to each other more on the pitch.”

...aims for the new season: “As a team, we still haven’t set a target for the season, so I can’t say anything about it right now. However, I think that we want to do better than last year. We want to continue to work well in our preparations first of all, because I believe that you can buy luck if you work hard enough. So we’ll try to do that. Again, a good start is definitely important.”