Next up on the road to Euro qualification for the German U21s are Azerbaijan. Stefan Kuntz’s side play at home this Friday at the Stadion der Freundschaft in Cottbus before travelling to Norway for the first away match of the campaign.
In a DFB.de interview with editor Maximilian Schwartz, Stephan Kuntz talks about the team’s preparation, the challenges for his newly-formed team and football euphoria in Cottbus.
DFB.de: Herr Kuntz, about a month ago your newly-formed team started the campaign to qualify for the Euros with a 1-0 victory over Kosovo. Has there been a noticeable development in the last four weeks?
Stefan Kuntz: Of course, the players have collected a lot more experience in the past four weeks. All the same, of the 23 in the squad, only six completed 90 minutes over the past weekend so there’s a lot of energy left. We want to work on the players getting more game time in the league. We don’t just have the individual players’ development in mind but that of the team also. The squad for last month’s match had 17 new players in it and we’ve had three new additions now. The bonding and getting to know each other will take a while and we’ll be a step further forward when we achieve it.
DFB.de: Nadiem Amiri and Levin Öztunali are ill and are being treated by their teams. Is there a chance they could still make the qualifiers?
Kuntz: We’ll see, hopefully they can make it. They’re important players for us. We’re in contact with their clubs. They’re European Cup winners, both have been here before. They know how things work in this team, but we have other players who are ready, too.
DFB.de: First the home game against Azerbaijan, then away to Norway. Are six points a must for the current champions?
Kuntz: I wouldn’t say they’re a must but we obviously want to win both matches. To have nine out of nice would put us in a good position. Nevertheless, the game against Kosovo showed that there will be some really challenging matches in this group. We dominated the game but found it hard to carve out opportunities.
Next up on the road to Euro qualification for the German U21s are Azerbaijan. Stefan Kuntz’s side play at home this Friday at the Stadion der Freundschaft in Cottbus before travelling to Norway for the first away match of the campaign.
In a DFB.de interview with editor Maximilian Schwartz, Stephan Kuntz talks about the team’s preparation, the challenges for his newly-formed team and football euphoria in Cottbus.
DFB.de: Herr Kuntz, about a month ago your newly-formed team started the campaign to qualify for the Euros with a 1-0 victory over Kosovo. Has there been a noticeable development in the last four weeks?
Stefan Kuntz: Of course, the players have collected a lot more experience in the past four weeks. All the same, of the 23 in the squad, only six completed 90 minutes over the past weekend so there’s a lot of energy left. We want to work on the players getting more game time in the league. We don’t just have the individual players’ development in mind but that of the team also. The squad for last month’s match had 17 new players in it and we’ve had three new additions now. The bonding and getting to know each other will take a while and we’ll be a step further forward when we achieve it.
DFB.de: Nadiem Amiri and Levin Öztunali are ill and are being treated by their teams. Is there a chance they could still make the qualifiers?
Kuntz: We’ll see, hopefully they can make it. They’re important players for us. We’re in contact with their clubs. They’re European Cup winners, both have been here before. They know how things work in this team, but we have other players who are ready, too.
DFB.de: First the home game against Azerbaijan, then away to Norway. Are six points a must for the current champions?
Kuntz: I wouldn’t say they’re a must but we obviously want to win both matches. To have nine out of nice would put us in a good position. Nevertheless, the game against Kosovo showed that there will be some really challenging matches in this group. We dominated the game but found it hard to carve out opportunities.
DFB.de: Are you expecting a similar match against Azerbaijan?
Kuntz: Azerbaijan will defend very deep so we’ll have to find solutions to that. In our game against Kosovo we were often too slow on the ball going forward and played in the wrong areas. The match against Norway will be something different though.
DFB.de: In what way?
Kuntz: It’s a different challenge because we’ll be playing on Astroturf, but also because Norwegian sides really play with the ball at their feet. They have some really talented players so we’ll have to be good defensively but there’ll also be more space in the match.
DFB.de: More than 6,000 tickets have been sold for the game against Azerbaijan already. It seems the fans in Cottbus are looking forward to the game.
Kuntz: And we’re looking forward to a great atmosphere in Cottbus and are making the most of Energie Cottbus’ good start to the Regionalliga Nordost. We can be thankful to Pele Wollitz and his team that there is such a good football feeling in Cottbus at the moment (laughs). I can remember some great games with FCK – they make it hard for you as an away team.
