"There will be one of two changes"

Julian Nagelsmann on…

…the opponent:

Mainz will play similar football to last year. They place a lot of importance on having a good defence and a strong formation so that they can counter-attack quickly. For us, this means that we will have to defend well when they are on the counter and we can’t afford to lose the ball easily. We have been going over a few tactics to do this. Mainz are a difficult team to play against. They have a good manager who is very passionate and coaches them well throughout the game. His passion spreads amongst the rest of the team. All will give their upmost. It’s their first home game of the season and it will be sold out. Therefore it will be difficult for us to play there. But we will give it our all to win the three points.

…the team:

I still haven’t seen all the players who have returned from international duty. Currently they are all fit to play. We will assess how Mark Uth and Marco Terrazzino are doing after picking up knocks during the week on Friday.

…the sporting situation:

I wasn’t pleased with how we defended against Leipzig. So we’ve been working really hard on that over the past two weeks. It wasn’t easy to do so because so many players who would be in the starting eleven weren’t present at training. However we are going to point out certain things to the players verbally and with the help of video. It’s nothing new for the players. It’s all about old patterns and recurring themes. It’s nice to have an extra free day after the international break and to play on Sunday. The players who were on international duty have an extra day to recover. That’s definitely an advantage for us.

Previous meeting between the two sides:

The teams have faced each other 14 times in the Bundesliga but TSG have only won three times. TSG Hoffenheim have only won once away at Mainz around this time five years ago. On 10th September 2011 Ryan Babel (2), Roberto Firmino and an own goal from Nicolce Noveski gave TSG a 4-0 win. TSG won their last match against Mainz 3-2 with two goals from Mark Uth.

The form of the opposition:  

It’s more difficult to assess Mainz’s form after the break from Bundesliga football. Schmidt’s team struggled against Unterhaching in the first round of the DFB Cup, only progressing to the next round of the competition on penalties. Mainz lost 1-3 in their friendly against 2.Bundesliga team Sandhausen. Between those matches, they lost 1-2 to Dortmund on the first game on the season.

Key battles:

Mainz is not a team of individuals. They play together as a real team on the pitch. The eleven players work as a unit, have a clear plan which they show on the pitch. That is how they qualified for the Europa League last year. The club wants to live up to this success. TSG have to work them hard, put them under pressure and keep to our plan. And they have to play as a team and respond to the intensity of the home team with a good level of aggres

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