You could clearly see the relief on Mario Gomez’s face. The Germany international made a key contribution to VfL Wolfsburg’s second consecutive win on matchday 16 of the Bundesliga with his fourth goal of the season.
The Wolves now have 16 points in the bag after winning their clash with Borussia Mönchengladbach 2-1 and can head into the winter break feeling a little more relaxed.
The 31-year-old speaks in an interview with about the three points in Gladbach, his record in the first half of this season and the ongoing discussions with coach Valerien Ismael.
Interviewer: Mario Gomez, 2-1 against Borussia Mönchengladbach – how important is this victory for VfL?
Mario Gomez: Very important. When you have 13 points, every win is incredibly important. Now we have 16 points and with two victories behind us, we can enjoy Christmas slightly more. It is of course nothing special since we set out to achieve more, but I think that we’ve ended this part of the season positively with six points from two games. We’ve recently had luck back on our side and we’ve earned that to some extent.
Interviewer: Both teams’ confidence was low. How did that manifest itself on the pitch in your eyes?
Gomez: I think we deserved to win, because we executed the things we wanted to do. Clearly we still made a lot of mistakes that a team like us really cannot allow to happen. Anyone who’s played football knows that not everything comes off in this kind of situation, so we don’t care at all how we get the points. Gladbach certainly put pressure on us but they only had one big chance until the goal but other than that they didn’t really threaten.
Interviewer: Is the goal to make it 2-1 just after the equaliser a sign that the confidence is back in the team again?
Gomez: We had actually been playing well in the first half of games in previous weeks but we had not been maintaining that for the full 90 minutes. Then we managed to see games through but once again went backwards. There was also an element of that against Gladbach. We need to work out why that is happening, because going forward, we have an outstanding team. It is always easier to play the ball backwards when you are lacking in confidence but we need to try and stop ourselves doing that. That is the challenge for us as players. If we can get that right, then we’ll have a much better second half of the season. But that is a long way off. Now it’s about recovering for these first two weeks and reflecting on what was has been a tough season so far.
Interviewer: Does the winter break maybe even come at a slightly bad time?
Gomez: No, it’s definitely the right time. It is not the case that winning two games in a row is an exception for us, but rather that we should have won more games. Now we need to catch our breath first and foremost, calm down, reflect on what has been so far and then give it everything once again in January at our training camp.
Interviewer: You’ve made your position clear on the coach time and again. It was announced before the game in Gladbach that Valerien Ismael will also be conducting training in January and prepare the team for the next part of the Bundesliga season. How important is that for all of you?
Gomez: I’ll be frank. I’m so nice to journalists but this is all a game and you are all playing it. If you weren’t to ask me that, nobody would be speaking about it, because it is not an issue in the team. But when we always have to speak about this after every game, then the topic is always around. We need to stop this. The coach and manager have gone. We hadn’t won in four matches with him, so he left. If we always change the manager after every four games, then we’ll have had eight coaches by the end of the season. But at some point we need to take responsibility as players. How many coaches are we going to have? Everything else is a matter of the club. The players are the wrong people to ask about this stuff. If you have a bad relationship with the coach yourself, nobody would get up and say ‘No, he won’t be sticking around.’ So I don’t understand these questions, it is always the same game. I know that a change of coach is a big thing for you guys but don’t always ask me about it after every game, it’s boring.
Interviewer: But staying clear of drama for the second half of the season is important isn’t it?
Gomez: Yes but you guys can help calm things down by not asking these questions. I don’t want to talk about the coach at all. If we’ve lost, players who are unhappy will get spoken about or the coach will be discussed. What went wrong in the game never gets talked about. It would be a lot better if we just spoke about that, because maybe we’d win more matches otherwise.
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You could clearly see the relief on Mario Gomez’s face. The Germany international made a key contribution to VfL Wolfsburg’s second consecutive win on matchday 16 of the Bundesliga with his fourth goal of the season.
The Wolves now have 16 points in the bag after winning their clash with Borussia Mönchengladbach 2-1 and can head into the winter break feeling a little more relaxed.
The 31-year-old speaks in an interview with about the three points in Gladbach, his record in the first half of this season and the ongoing discussions with coach Valerien Ismael.
Interviewer: Mario Gomez, 2-1 against Borussia Mönchengladbach – how important is this victory for VfL?
Mario Gomez: Very important. When you have 13 points, every win is incredibly important. Now we have 16 points and with two victories behind us, we can enjoy Christmas slightly more. It is of course nothing special since we set out to achieve more, but I think that we’ve ended this part of the season positively with six points from two games. We’ve recently had luck back on our side and we’ve earned that to some extent.
Interviewer: Both teams’ confidence was low. How did that manifest itself on the pitch in your eyes?
Gomez: I think we deserved to win, because we executed the things we wanted to do. Clearly we still made a lot of mistakes that a team like us really cannot allow to happen. Anyone who’s played football knows that not everything comes off in this kind of situation, so we don’t care at all how we get the points. Gladbach certainly put pressure on us but they only had one big chance until the goal but other than that they didn’t really threaten.
Interviewer: Is the goal to make it 2-1 just after the equaliser a sign that the confidence is back in the team again?
Gomez: We had actually been playing well in the first half of games in previous weeks but we had not been maintaining that for the full 90 minutes. Then we managed to see games through but once again went backwards. There was also an element of that against Gladbach. We need to work out why that is happening, because going forward, we have an outstanding team. It is always easier to play the ball backwards when you are lacking in confidence but we need to try and stop ourselves doing that. That is the challenge for us as players. If we can get that right, then we’ll have a much better second half of the season. But that is a long way off. Now it’s about recovering for these first two weeks and reflecting on what was has been a tough season so far.
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Interviewer: Does the winter break maybe even come at a slightly bad time?
Gomez: No, it’s definitely the right time. It is not the case that winning two games in a row is an exception for us, but rather that we should have won more games. Now we need to catch our breath first and foremost, calm down, reflect on what has been so far and then give it everything once again in January at our training camp.
Interviewer: You’ve made your position clear on the coach time and again. It was announced before the game in Gladbach that Valerien Ismael will also be conducting training in January and prepare the team for the next part of the Bundesliga season. How important is that for all of you?
Gomez: I’ll be frank. I’m so nice to journalists but this is all a game and you are all playing it. If you weren’t to ask me that, nobody would be speaking about it, because it is not an issue in the team. But when we always have to speak about this after every game, then the topic is always around. We need to stop this. The coach and manager have gone. We hadn’t won in four matches with him, so he left. If we always change the manager after every four games, then we’ll have had eight coaches by the end of the season. But at some point we need to take responsibility as players. How many coaches are we going to have? Everything else is a matter of the club. The players are the wrong people to ask about this stuff. If you have a bad relationship with the coach yourself, nobody would get up and say ‘No, he won’t be sticking around.’ So I don’t understand these questions, it is always the same game. I know that a change of coach is a big thing for you guys but don’t always ask me about it after every game, it’s boring.
Interviewer: But staying clear of drama for the second half of the season is important isn’t it?
Gomez: Yes but you guys can help calm things down by not asking these questions. I don’t want to talk about the coach at all. If we’ve lost, players who are unhappy will get spoken about or the coach will be discussed. What went wrong in the game never gets talked about. It would be a lot better if we just spoke about that, because maybe we’d win more matches otherwise.
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