Hummels held the fort singlehandedly for the Germany national team in their win against Northern Ireland. Hummels gave another faultless performance in defence, just like he did in Hamburg against Czech Republic. Hummels spoke straight after the match about the Northern Ireland team and the moment where he became a wing wizard.
Interviewer: Mr Hummels, how satisfied with you with the match and the result?
Mats Hummels: We deserved to get the result. We dominated the match and we made it ours by scoring the early goals. We tried to score more but sometimes we didn’t use the right options. It’s not easy to always pick out the right pass against such a defensive opponent. But overall, we can be very satisfied with the win.
Interviewer: What were these wrong options?
Hummels: We tried to force the ball through too often. We tried to play the ball around four, five Northern Ireland defenders to a striker, who had two defenders on him. That’s what we usually like to do but today it didn’t work out and we lost the ball a few times. If we stayed a bit calmer, we could have got an even bigger win.
Interviewer: You were one-on-one with Northern Ireland striker Josh Magennes a few times in the first half. Did you feel isolated?
Hummels: We had a short conversation on the pitch about whether I was okay to deal with one-on-ones, and I was. But then fortunately enough we managed to keep control of possession so that Northern Ireland didn’t hit a long ball up to Magennes every two minutes.
Interviewer: A few young players could feature again against San Marino. Do you think you’ll need a break?
Hummels: I’m not the kind of player who likes to take breaks. I will happily play. But I might reconsider this if I play the full 90 minutes in every match for Bayern until the next international break. I think the players who play football in a country that doesn’t have a winter break should be rested.
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Hummels held the fort singlehandedly for the Germany national team in their win against Northern Ireland. Hummels gave another faultless performance in defence, just like he did in Hamburg against Czech Republic. Hummels spoke straight after the match about the Northern Ireland team and the moment where he became a wing wizard.
Interviewer: Mr Hummels, how satisfied with you with the match and the result?
Mats Hummels: We deserved to get the result. We dominated the match and we made it ours by scoring the early goals. We tried to score more but sometimes we didn’t use the right options. It’s not easy to always pick out the right pass against such a defensive opponent. But overall, we can be very satisfied with the win.
Interviewer: What were these wrong options?
Hummels: We tried to force the ball through too often. We tried to play the ball around four, five Northern Ireland defenders to a striker, who had two defenders on him. That’s what we usually like to do but today it didn’t work out and we lost the ball a few times. If we stayed a bit calmer, we could have got an even bigger win.
Interviewer: You were one-on-one with Northern Ireland striker Josh Magennes a few times in the first half. Did you feel isolated?
Hummels: We had a short conversation on the pitch about whether I was okay to deal with one-on-ones, and I was. But then fortunately enough we managed to keep control of possession so that Northern Ireland didn’t hit a long ball up to Magennes every two minutes.
Interviewer: A few young players could feature again against San Marino. Do you think you’ll need a break?
Hummels: I’m not the kind of player who likes to take breaks. I will happily play. But I might reconsider this if I play the full 90 minutes in every match for Bayern until the next international break. I think the players who play football in a country that doesn’t have a winter break should be rested.
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Interviewer: Did it annoy you that the whole stadium sung “Will Griggs on fire” at the end of the match?
Hummels: I thought it was cool that the whole stadium joined in singing a foreign song. The atmosphere was really special. And everyone already knows that I’m a fan of the Northern Ireland fans.
Interviewer: You’ll watch the matches of teams in other groups. Which teams are looking dangerous at the moment?
Hummels: It’s a hypothetical question because we won’t have to play any of these teams in a competitive qualifying fixture. Everything could be completely different in one and a half years time. But I would imagine that we will be one of the favourites to win the World Cup in Russia.
b>Interviewer: Is there now a regular starting line-up that makes it more difficult for other players to get in?
Hummels: I actually think we have about 16, 17 maybe 18 players who form part of the regular squad. André Schürrle, Marco Reus and Mario Gomez are not part of the squad this time because of injury. We will play with these regular players against the big teams, most of them are from the same generation and a lot of us have played together in the national team for a few years. But everything can change quickly in football, whether it be due to dips in form or an injury.
Interviewer: Were you pleased with your moment as wing wizard?
Hummels: It was good. But it would have been even better if Thomas Müller had managed to put the ball into the net.
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