World Cup winner Benedikt Höwedes and his FC Schalke 04 were fortunate 1-0 winners over FC Ingolstadt as they returned to action in 2017. The 43-time Germany international was very happy about the victory after 90 hard-fought minutes. January signing Guido Burgstaller had given Schalke a last-minute victory to start the year with three points. In this interview with DFB.de the 28-year-old talks about the scrappy win and about their next game at home against Eintracht Frankfurt.
Question: Benedikt Höwedes, would you disagree if we labelled your victory against Ingolstadt a scrappy win?
Benedikt Höwedes: No, you could call it that. We have to be honest: It wasn’t a good game of football. Both teams focussed on the essentials, which was to have a compact defence. The pitch wasn’t in the best condition, which meant that both teams played a lot of long balls forward and looked to win the rebounds.
Question: How did you experience the run of play?
Höwedes: There weren’t many highlights in the first half. In the second half we had at least two opportunities to score. It certainly wasn’t enough and something we have to improve on during our next games. Nonetheless I’m happy about this win and that we get to take home the three points.
Question: Why did your team struggle so much against Ingolstadt?
Höwedes: The same was already on display on Friday when Bayern played in Freiburg: When a team like Freiburg or Ingolstadt are willing to cover a lot of distance and work against the ball a lot, it becomes difficult to create chances.
Question: Coach Markus Weinzierl said before the game that the first two matches against Ingolstadt and Eintracht Frankfurt would be extremely important. Do you agree?
World Cup winner Benedikt Höwedes and his FC Schalke 04 were fortunate 1-0 winners over FC Ingolstadt as they returned to action in 2017. The 43-time Germany international was very happy about the victory after 90 hard-fought minutes. January signing Guido Burgstaller had given Schalke a last-minute victory to start the year with three points. In this interview with DFB.de the 28-year-old talks about the scrappy win and about their next game at home against Eintracht Frankfurt.
Question: Benedikt Höwedes, would you disagree if we labelled your victory against Ingolstadt a scrappy win?
Benedikt Höwedes: No, you could call it that. We have to be honest: It wasn’t a good game of football. Both teams focussed on the essentials, which was to have a compact defence. The pitch wasn’t in the best condition, which meant that both teams played a lot of long balls forward and looked to win the rebounds.
Question: How did you experience the run of play?
Höwedes: There weren’t many highlights in the first half. In the second half we had at least two opportunities to score. It certainly wasn’t enough and something we have to improve on during our next games. Nonetheless I’m happy about this win and that we get to take home the three points.
Question: Why did your team struggle so much against Ingolstadt?
Höwedes: The same was already on display on Friday when Bayern played in Freiburg: When a team like Freiburg or Ingolstadt are willing to cover a lot of distance and work against the ball a lot, it becomes difficult to create chances.
Question: Coach Markus Weinzierl said before the game that the first two matches against Ingolstadt and Eintracht Frankfurt would be extremely important. Do you agree?
Höwedes: In the position we are in all our games are important. You could tell that the crowd wasn’t satisfied with the performance. And we felt the same on the pitch. We won’t be going home now telling ourselves that we did everything correctly. We have to be self-critical in this situation. We simply have to find better solutions and show more courage.
Question: How important was this victory psychologically?
Höwedes: It was a hard-fought win and we are all aware of that. Nevertheless, it’s a good feeling to pick up the three points and it will help us regain confidence. I also think that we will now approach the game with Eintracht Frankfurt with a different mindset.
Question: Guido Burgstaller scored in his first competitive appearance for S04. How did you see his performance?
Höwedes: Burgi is a classic striker. He dug deep and fought with the rest of us. He covered a lot of ground and was very active. You could already see that in our training sessions leading up to this game. The striker’s instinct that he’s shown in the second division, was put on display against Ingolstadt. It wasn’t the best goal, but in the end it doesn’t matter how you score goals – the important thing is how many goals you score.
Question: How much does Schalke have to improve before hosting Frankfurt next Friday?
Höwedes: We obviously have to improve and we need to show more. I hope that we will manage to bring that to the pitch on Friday.
