SVWW narrow defeat to Champions in season finale
Pros |
"We're looking forward to the next tough task." SV Wehen Wiesbaden's first away game following the interruption to the season will be against 1. FC Heidenheim 1846 on Friday (22 May). Kick-off at the Voith-Arena will be at 18:30 CET. We have summarised the highlights of SVWW head coach Rüdiger Rehm's virtual pre-match press conference for you below.
Personnel matters: Rüdiger Rehm will have no choice but to make changes to his starting XI in Baden-Württemberg. Benedikt Röcker and Sascha Mockenhaupt both picked up their fifth booking of the season against VfB Stuttgart on Sunday and will now serve a suspension. "There's no good time to change a team that is functioning well. But we shall take it for what it is and try to make the best of it," said the Red & Blacks' head coach.
"We have good alternatives," continued Rehm. Jeremias Lorch, Dominik Franke, Jakov Medic, Gökhan Gül and Moritz Kuhn, who was carrying a niggle, will be available. The SVWW tactician did not rule out the possibility that one or two players from the first XI might be used in alternative positions, meaning that someone else may replace the absentees in the starting XI. Rehm is convinced "that the lads who are given a chance on Friday will give everything".
The scenario: SVWW will go into their clash with FCH brimming with self-belief and optimism. The victory and the last-gasp goal gave the team "a good feeling," explained Rehm, adding: "The match showed us that we worked well during the break. We managed to ease back players who were lagging a bit behind; the substitutions bore fruit and provided momentum."
The outlook: "We're focused on Friday evening. 1. FC Heidenheim will be our opponents then," declared the coach. "For us, it was important to get the points, to stay in the running and to continue our development." At this point in time, the Red & Blacks are not paying too much attention to the matches that follow Heidenheim or the results from other stadiums. "We want to create problems for FCH, as we have recently managed to do against other teams – in the knowledge that we're coming up against a team with a good mentality."
The opposition: Coach Frank Schmidt's charges resumed their Bundesliga 2 campaign with a 3-0 defeat at VfL Bochum. Rehm is therefore definitely expecting the fourth-placed outfit to have "fire in their bellies" and to want to make amends for the points they dropped on their return to home soil. "In FCH, we're up against a team that has developed very well over the course of the past few years," explained the SVWW coach, adding: "We need to make sure that we build on the approach we've been pursuing over the last few weeks."
Man of the Match: As always, you have the opportunity to vote for your Man of the Match. Simply cast your vote in the Match Center on the SVWW website anytime between kick-off and midnight on the day of the game and win a shirt signed by the Man of the Match!