“Steer the game in our direction”
Hertha will look to have a successful end to the week of work they kicked off on Tuesday morning, as they face off against RB Leipzig at 19:30 CET on Sunday. The game closes out Bundesliga matchday 23, and the team will have to show tactical discipline and good aggression, as well as being proactive, as Tayfun Korkut mentioned in his press conference on Friday afternoon: “We want to play the game on the front foot, keep creating as many shooting opportunities as possible and steer the game in our direction,” said our head coach, describing his expectations. “If we manage to bring the motivation and aggression into the game, we’ll make things difficult for our opposition. We need to go about the game in a brave way,” said Korkut. All the latest from the head coach is here on herthabsc.com.
Tayfun Korkut on...
... the squad and Niklas Stark’s absence due to Covid-19:
Tayfun Korkut: Personnel issues have been a theme of our last few weeks. We aren’t making too much of a fuss though; we trust the players we have here. When I look at how young Linus Gechter played in Fürth, I’m more than sure that he can perform admirably in defence alongside Marc Oliver Kempf. Linus has trained well for weeks and got thrown into the deep end a bit against Bayern, but you can see how much good it did him. You can see how much he enjoys playing in every training session and every match – that came through in his goal at Fürth, and it’s a great thing for us.
... the team’s approach to Sunday:
Tayfun Korkut: The analysis and training we’ve done this week have been really lively, which is a good thing for me as a coach; I always prefer to calm down the lads rather than hyping them up. If we manage to bring that motivation and aggression from training into the game, we’ll make things difficult for our opposition. We want to play the game on the front foot, not just getting into dangerous areas but also creating as many shooting opportunities as possible and steering the game in our direction. To do that, we need to go about the game in a brave way and play the ball forward!
... the opposition and his counterpart, Domenico Tedesco:
Tayfun Korkut: The coaching staff and myself came together to watch Leipzig's game against Real Sociedad last night. The things we can take lessons from are the high level of discipline and work off the ball they put in. We want to get shots off more often than we do now, though. If we do that then we have a chance of winning! I know Domenico well and RBL are playing a possession game under him whilst being absolutely deadly on the counter attack. We need to be active, but have to be wide awake in transitions. Leipzig have a lot of quality in their team, but we have some ways of holding our own against them; we’ve got quality players and players with experience. If we work in a disciplined way, we definitely have a chance.
... the increased spectator capacity and the backing of our fans:
Tayfun Korkut: I’m looking forward to hearing 10,000 fans supporting the team; they were making a lot of noise when it was just 3,000 of them. We want to put in a performance that the fans will be satisfied with, whether they’re at home or at the Olympiastadion, and send them home happy.