Sandro Wagner: "I speak my mind"

Tell us about your first few weeks at TSG, Sandro?

Sandro Wagner: My impressions have been solely positive. I tried very quickly to settle in here after my holiday, tried to get to know everyone - not just the players, but the people surrounding the team as well. Settling in included familiarising myself with lots of new procedures. Not much time has passed but I have adapted well. It’s still a working progress though. My sights are set on the first match - by then I want to feel 100 percent physically and know how everything works around here. That’s not easy, because the style of play here is completely different from before. I knew that would be the case, though. So I’m looking at it very positively. 

You’re a popular target for the media. How do you experience the public interest?

Wagner: That’s just part and parcel of playing in the Bundesliga. I just go along with it. The environment in Hoffenheim is very relaxed though, that suits me. I like to work under these conditions.

Sandro Wagner on the pitch and Sandro Wagner off the pitch - where are there differences and similarities?

Wagner: To be honest, there are very few similarities. In my private life I’m completely different from what I’m like on the pitch. On the pitch it’s all about one thing - I want the very best for my team and want to prove myself. For me, physicality comes with that, which is why I might not always be that likeable on the pitch. But that’s not so important. In my private life I’m calm and my family is very important to me. I’m a boring guy. I don’t go out clubbing or anything like that.

Lots of outsiders say time and again that football is missing guys like that. Are you one of those guys?

Wagner: That’s for others to decide. I always hear that as well, that guys like that are missing; especially from former players, from the 70s or the 80s. But the world and football have changed since then. For me one thing is important - I have an opinion and I will express it, even when others might not like it. If everyone only ever said what someone else wanted to hear, we would not make any progress.

In your youth days you used to play against your current manager. Kind of strange…

Wagner: No, not at all; he is my manager and a very respectable man. Whether he’s 16 or 60 doesn’t matter one bit to me. There are only good and bad managers, and Julian is a good one. I’ve never thought about his age.

A lot is being said about Julian Nagelsmann’s training methods. What is your experience of his sessions so far?

Wagner: The sessions are complicated - I’d be lying if I said otherwise. You have to have your head in the game at all times, otherwise it won’t work. I always have to be awake, but that’s good. There are lots of benefits. Ideally, nothing we are faced with on the pitch can surprise us anymore. For me it’s a big transition. I haven’t understood anything 100 percent yet, but I’m on the right track. Fundamentally, I’m an instinctive player: that means, as an attacker I will often break out of the system to try and help the team. Julian knows this and wants it that way as well.

In training, you’re often in heated battles with Nikas Süle and Ermin Bicakcic. There are more pleasant oppositions, aren’t there?

Wagner: Definitely, but I like that. We have a lot of players who are strong in the fifty-fifties and you need that in training. Otherwise when you come to play in the Bundesliga you’ll be surprised by the physicality. Football has developed into a more physical game, with lots of fifty-fifty challenges all over the pitch. It’s of great importance to be strong in them.

There are still three and a half weeks until the start of the season. How far have you come as a team and where do you want to get to?

Wagner: By the first competitive game we need to be completely ready, understand each other’s games, and be in perfect harmony with one another - that's what it’s all about. Of course we’re not quite at that stage just yet. We’re finding our feet a little more - in every training session and in every friendly. Going forward especially we’re lacking a lot of mutual understanding. I think in the next two friendlies against Verona and Bilbao this will change and we will find more of a solid formation. I am sure by the time we face Leipzig on the opening day we will be able to field a team that knows what needs to be done to take all three points at home.

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