Borussia Dortmund recorded an impressive 2-0 friendly victory against Juventus in St. Gallen with goals from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Germany international Marco Reus. The game concluded an eight-day training camp in Switzerland. World Champion Matthias Ginter was brought on in the second half against the Italian champions, just four days ahead of BVB's Europa League qualifier. Alongside his national team colleague and Dortmund skipper Mats Hummels the 21-year-old displayed a solid performance in central defence.
Ginter sat down with DFB.de to discuss the friendly match with last year's Champions League finalists, their eight-day training camp in Bad Ragaz, competition in BVB's squad and their early start to the season next Thursday against Wolfsberger AC (21:05 CEST) in Klagenfurt.
DFB.de: Mr. Ginter, the 2-0 victory over Juventus was quite pleasant to watch from the stands.
Ginter: It felt quite good on the pitch as well. We didn’t allow Juventus to have too many chances, which was our primary goal, to play compact as a team. I think we accomplished that throughout the entire 90 minutes. We had chances to score more goals than we did and we can be satisfied with our week of training here in Switzerland.
DFB.de: The team appeared to be quite fresh despite all the hard work that has been done here in Bad Ragaz. Almost as if you didn’t train enough?
Ginter: (laughs) No, that certainly wasn't the case.
DFB.de: Even when your new manager Thomas Tuchel made several changes at half time, the fluency of your game didn’t appear to be affected. Was everything really running that smoothly?
Ginter: We have two quality players for every position. There is a lot of quality in our squad. But that alone will not win us games, hard work is what's required in order to keep improving every day. We want to be even more solid at the back and play better attacking football. That's what we will work on until Thursday when we play Wolfsberger AC.
DFB.de: Did you notice an improvement in form in the Juventus friendly, compared with earlier games in your pre-season?
Ginter: Yes, I think so. We already played well against Luzern, but Juventus is a completely different calibre. On the other hand, I don't know how hard Juve trained the last few days and they didn’t look that fresh to me. We look to improve gradually from game to game and I think we accomplished that today.
DFB.de: The competition in BVB's squad is extremely tough and there are hardly any injuries. How do you see your personal situation in Dortmund currently?
Ginter: We are glad that all our players stayed injury-free. That's the most important thing in pre-season. I personally just try to give it my best each day in training and then perform well in friendly games, hoping to make it as difficult for our manager as possible.
DFB.de: If you qualify for the Europa League group stage, Dortmund will have played 30 competitive games by Christmas. You need a big squad in order to master this extremely busy schedule, right?
Ginter: Definitely, yes. We played a game every third day last season and we all witnessed how tough that is. It's impossible to do that playing the exact same eleven players in each game. Injuries happen very quickly in modern football, but like I said: We all try to stay healthy and hopefully play a good season.
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Borussia Dortmund recorded an impressive 2-0 friendly victory against Juventus in St. Gallen with goals from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Germany international Marco Reus. The game concluded an eight-day training camp in Switzerland. World Champion Matthias Ginter was brought on in the second half against the Italian champions, just four days ahead of BVB's Europa League qualifier. Alongside his national team colleague and Dortmund skipper Mats Hummels the 21-year-old displayed a solid performance in central defence.
Ginter sat down with DFB.de to discuss the friendly match with last year's Champions League finalists, their eight-day training camp in Bad Ragaz, competition in BVB's squad and their early start to the season next Thursday against Wolfsberger AC (21:05 CEST) in Klagenfurt.
DFB.de: Mr. Ginter, the 2-0 victory over Juventus was quite pleasant to watch from the stands.
Ginter: It felt quite good on the pitch as well. We didn’t allow Juventus to have too many chances, which was our primary goal, to play compact as a team. I think we accomplished that throughout the entire 90 minutes. We had chances to score more goals than we did and we can be satisfied with our week of training here in Switzerland.
DFB.de: The team appeared to be quite fresh despite all the hard work that has been done here in Bad Ragaz. Almost as if you didn’t train enough?
Ginter: (laughs) No, that certainly wasn't the case.
DFB.de: Even when your new manager Thomas Tuchel made several changes at half time, the fluency of your game didn’t appear to be affected. Was everything really running that smoothly?
Ginter: We have two quality players for every position. There is a lot of quality in our squad. But that alone will not win us games, hard work is what's required in order to keep improving every day. We want to be even more solid at the back and play better attacking football. That's what we will work on until Thursday when we play Wolfsberger AC.
DFB.de: Did you notice an improvement in form in the Juventus friendly, compared with earlier games in your pre-season?
Ginter: Yes, I think so. We already played well against Luzern, but Juventus is a completely different calibre. On the other hand, I don't know how hard Juve trained the last few days and they didn’t look that fresh to me. We look to improve gradually from game to game and I think we accomplished that today.
DFB.de: The competition in BVB's squad is extremely tough and there are hardly any injuries. How do you see your personal situation in Dortmund currently?
Ginter: We are glad that all our players stayed injury-free. That's the most important thing in pre-season. I personally just try to give it my best each day in training and then perform well in friendly games, hoping to make it as difficult for our manager as possible.
DFB.de: If you qualify for the Europa League group stage, Dortmund will have played 30 competitive games by Christmas. You need a big squad in order to master this extremely busy schedule, right?
Ginter: Definitely, yes. We played a game every third day last season and we all witnessed how tough that is. It's impossible to do that playing the exact same eleven players in each game. Injuries happen very quickly in modern football, but like I said: We all try to stay healthy and hopefully play a good season.
