Gündogan: For sure, what Matze is doing at the moment – hats off to him! His performances have been sensational – it feels like every square ball or cross he whips in ends up in the back of the net. It’s amazing, and Matze is in top form at the moment. I hope that he can keep his form up for a long time.
Question: Back to Krasnodar – did your opening Europa League game make it even more obvious that it won’t be a walk in the park in Europe this season?
Gündogan: Obviously it won’t be easy, but to be honest we knew that before. Even if you don’t come up against so many big names as in the Champions League, it’s clear – the Europa League is will be a tough task for us. Every game starts at 0-0, and our Bundesliga form goes out the window.
Question: Was last night just a one-off, or can we say that you still have a little bit to work on defensively in the Europa League?
Gündogan: You definitely can say that – we weren’t totally secure at the back in our qualification games or in the play-off. That maybe came from the fact that we were always rotating a couple of players, but that shouldn’t be a huge problem. The players who get picked need to remember the way we want to play, and there’s definitely room for improvement there that we’ll work on in the coming weeks.
Ten competitive fixtures, ten wins. Despite a performance that was certainly lacking in places, Borussia Dortmund continued their perfect start to the season with a 2-1 win over Russian side FK Krasnodar in the Europa League last night. Germany international Matthias Ginter and new signing Joo-Ho Park got the goals for BVB – and Ginter’s fellow international teammate Ilkay Gündogan ran the show from the middle of the park. DFB.de spoke to the midfielder about BVB’s form and their upcoming clash with Bayer Leverkusen at the Signal-Iduna-Park on Sunday.
Question: Mr. Gündogan, that certainly looked like hard work. What made life so difficult for you against FK Krasnodar?
Ilkay Gündogan: They played very well – you have to give credit to them, and we also recognise that we didn’t have the best day either, especially without the ball. As well as that, we also lost the ball unnecessarily too many times at the other end, in the final third. The fact that a lot of the game was played in their half is a good thing, since it shows that we defended pretty well – but we weren’t able to close down the space when we lost the ball, especially in the first half. Then suddenly you’re behind and chasing the game, which is always difficult and even more so on the international stage. Therefore we can say that we were quite lucky to win the game – I’m not sure how much we deserved to win, but we’ll take it nonetheless. The fact that we won this game without playing particularly well for the whole game shows how well things are going for us at the moment.
Question: Is that possibly a new quality the team has shown – to win games even when you don’t play too well?
Gündogan: If it is, then I’ll happily accept that and hope it continues, but it’s definitely our aim to play a lot better than we did, simply because we know can and we’ve already shown it this season. We shouldn’t rely on any kind of luck – we should make sure that we play to our full potential in every game. We didn’t manage that against Krasnodar, at least not for the whole game. And now it’s all about the next game.
Question: You’ve said it yourself – on Sunday, Bayer Leverkusen visit Dortmund. Was last night’s game against Krasnodar therefore the perfect warning at the right time?
Gündogan: Leverkusen also got their warning last week with their loss to Darmstadt. When you compare our game last night to that loss, we got off rather lightly. But of course, if we perform like we did on Thursday it will be very hard in Sunday’s game – even more so because they’re coming off the back of a win in the Champions League. Therefore we really need to up our game, but the last few games have shown that we are capable of doing that – and that’s why I think it’ll be a really good game on Sunday.
Question: A quick word on Matthias Ginter. "Unbelievable" is probably the most suitable one! He scored another goal and also got an assist against Krasnodar.
Gündogan: For sure, what Matze is doing at the moment – hats off to him! His performances have been sensational – it feels like every square ball or cross he whips in ends up in the back of the net. It’s amazing, and Matze is in top form at the moment. I hope that he can keep his form up for a long time.
Question: Back to Krasnodar – did your opening Europa League game make it even more obvious that it won’t be a walk in the park in Europe this season?
Gündogan: Obviously it won’t be easy, but to be honest we knew that before. Even if you don’t come up against so many big names as in the Champions League, it’s clear – the Europa League is will be a tough task for us. Every game starts at 0-0, and our Bundesliga form goes out the window.
Question: Was last night just a one-off, or can we say that you still have a little bit to work on defensively in the Europa League?
Gündogan: You definitely can say that – we weren’t totally secure at the back in our qualification games or in the play-off. That maybe came from the fact that we were always rotating a couple of players, but that shouldn’t be a huge problem. The players who get picked need to remember the way we want to play, and there’s definitely room for improvement there that we’ll work on in the coming weeks.
