“Now it’s about showing a reaction”

Just under 72 hours is all 1. FSV Mainz 05 will have had to shake off the disappointment of their Conference League quarter-final exit at RC Strasbourg and clear their heads. First and foremost, that means sleep, food and recovery. On Sunday evening (19:30 CEST), the next challenge is already looming as Mainz round off matchday 30 with a trip to Borussia Mönchengladbach. It’s a schedule that can work both ways: on the one hand, there’s hardly any time to dwell on the defeat; on the other, it presents a real mental and physical test that the squad will have to come through together. Speaking at Friday afternoon’s press conference, head coach Urs Fischer was still visibly affected by the events in France the night before, but was already looking ahead, underlining the importance of the game at Borussia-Park: “We’ve got five massive games left in the fight to stay up. Now it’s about showing a reaction. Everyone’s got to step up. From now on, it’s all about Gladbach,” said Fischer, who will be hoping to extend his side’s current three-point cushion above the Foals.

Urs fischer on...

…the fallout from the exit: “The mood is subdued, the game has definitely left its mark. For a lot of what went wrong yesterday, we only have ourselves to blame. That actually makes it easier to deal with and analyse. Now we have to show the right reaction. Everyone has a part to play in that. From now on, it’s all about Gladbach. It’s like boxing: wipe your mouth and go again.”

…processing the defeat the next day: “We’ve analysed the game a bit. I felt the lads needed to see the footage, because it was pretty clear to draw conclusions there. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror, accept it, and then move forward. We’ve got five massive games left in the fight to stay up. We haven’t achieved anything in the Bundesliga yet.”

…what was behind the performance in Strasbourg: “I still don’t have an explanation for how we produced a performance like that, and I include myself in this sentiment. For me, the coach is responsible for preparing the team. And when I look at that performance, I didn’t get it right the way I’d envisaged. That comes down to the instructions we’d given, the tactics. What you try to get across doesn’t always materialise. Even so, it’s hard to explain how things that have worked 20 times before suddenly disappear. There are days like that in football, when you just can’t get the basics right on the pitch. That wasn’t my first time seeing something like that. At some point, though, you have to draw a line under it, because Gladbach is just two days away, and the lads have shown enough of what they’re capable of doing in recent months.”

…the post-match flare-up: “I’d have liked to see that kind of energy during the game. You can’t dress it up. I can understand the reaction to a certain extent, though. When someone behaves like that in front of our section, it’s easy to understand why it can cause a reaction like that. Still, such scenes aren’t nice to see and they’ve got no place in football.”

…fresh legs in Mönchengladbach: “Amiri and Caci both came on again in Strasbourg, and Bello, Hanche and Zentner were in the squad. They’re all working towards making a comeback. What that means for Sunday, we’ll have to see. We’ve been without them for a while, and now they can offer us extra options for the run-in.”

…Sunday’s opponents: “They’ll definitely try to inject a lot of energy into the game and draw us out a bit. They deliver a lot of balls from the half-spaces and have a clear target man up top in Tabakovic. Going forward they’ve got real quality that we’ll need to deal with. In general, we have to focus on the things we can influence and not let ourselves get dragged into any frenzy or provocation. That was an issue on Thursday.”