Oliver, two weeks of pre-season are done. How satisfied are you?
“Very satisfied. The international players returned in the second week, with Kevin Trapp and Filip Kostic the last ones back on Thursday. We had a lot of new players in the squad early and every training session helps. Now, over the next few weeks, it’s about getting to know each other as a group and integrating the new players into the system so that everyone gets a feel for each other.
That’s where the work in training is very important.”
Have the new boys already shown why you brought them in? “Of course we’ve seen that. We want to incorporate the strengths of every player into our system and benefit from them. The players we’ve signed have already shown why we signed them.”
We practise how we want to attack and how we’re organised defensively.
Head coach Oliver Glasner
The next friendly is against LASK, a club you took from the second division to the upper reaches of the top tier a few years ago. Will it be a special game for you?
“I had four hugely successful and wonderful years there. We started off in the second division and within four years we were [Bundesliga] runners-up. A lot of the players who were there the whole time are still there and I’m still in touch with them, so it certainly will be a special game. It’s also just a friendly though, and we’ll be looking to try certain things out.”
Will we see Mario Götze’s debut on Saturday?
“I thought he was already going to play at Aschaffenburg. He’s been training fully since the middle of the week and if nothing else gets in the way, he’ll make his debut in Linz.”
What are you working on in particular at the moment?
“Our focuses are actually always the same. We practise how we want to attack and how we’re organised defensively. Positioning, counter-attacking, attacking – everything. There’s also the physical training because we’re working very intensively. It’s that intensity which will give us the fitness we need.”
