1. FC Köln travel to SV Darmstadt 98 at the Merck-Stadion am Böllenfalltor on Friday evening on 2. Bundesliga Matchday 9. FC head coach, Gerhard Struber spoke with the gathered media on Wednesday ahead of the game.
Gerhard Struber spoke about…
…the fitness: “All of the players who were in action for their countries are back and fit. That is the most important thing. A few lads have returned following success with their nations, a few others have learned from the break. Leart Pacarada has been harbouring back problems for a while. But he trained again yesterday and I think he’ll be able to play in Darmstadt on Friday. Mark Uth has done really well during the break. He is able to stick away the increased load very well and we now want to see if we can get him some game time with the under-21s at the weekend.”
…the opponent, Darmstadt: “Darmstadt is a team that have real quality and have shown that in the past games. That has been clear with the new coach, as well as wanting to control the game and the ball more with good combination play.”
…the goals for the coming weeks: “With Darmstadt, Paderborn, Hertha and Greuther Fürth, we have a block of games where we want to get points on the board. To be in with a shout at the end, we need to pick up more points than we have done lately. We have to prepare well for every opponent to win games. It is a real challenge in the league and we have to improve in that aspect. It isn’t always productive to win with nice football, but instead it is better to use other means to pick up three points.”
…who will play right-back: “I’m relatively relaxed when it comes to that decision because we have a few players that can play that position.”
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