FC St. Pauli

... the new territory of the Bundesliga: “I’m looking forward to it, as I’ve said. That was the case too for the game against Atalanta. My first home game at the Millerntor, and a sell-out crowd. Now, with the first Bundesliga home game against Heidenheim it’s another step up. The start of a new season is definitely special. I can hardly wait. I believe we’re very well prepared, and I’m looking ahead to the game with confidence.”

...what lies in store for the Bundesliga with FC St. Pauli: “A colourful, joyous team. Our style of play is going to change. Less time in possession, more focus on transition. We therefore want to play with a lot of intensity and be a constant irritant. We want to give our fans and also the rest of Germany something to enjoy. We want to stir things up with the way we play football. I have high hopes there for the lads’ performance and our fans’ support.”

…potential nerves and how to counter them: “Talking is always good, but not too much either. We’ll always be reinforcing the lads’ belief in what we’re doing. You could already see in pre-season that we’ve got better step-by-step. We’re well on the way, but still have a few areas where we can improve. My job this week was to highlight situations where we're strong. It’s always better if you share that sort of thing as a group. We always aim to be promoting the feeling of belonging together, which was already there last year. That's going to be very important. We're not going to shine individually, only as a team.”

...our own style of play: “We want to have variety in our play. Not always just to press high, but also to sit deeper at times. It’ll be interesting to see what Heidenheim then do with ball. It's about finding the balance between pressure on the ball and keeping it tight at the back whenever we’re not getting pressure on the ball. It’s a problem we had at Norwich. There were a couple of breakdowns in communication. It’s going to be extremely important that our orientation and communications are clear. We need to be ugly. We're not going to win any prizes for pretty play or anything else. Playing ugly is simply part of the game. You saw it, in fact, in the Supercup, when Xavi Alonso got his boys fired up. That’s one means open to you. And we’re going to need it too when we're playing against opponents with more quality. I demand it too, and we’ve got the player for it.”

…the poor record of promoted teams, with no opening day win for seven years: “This season we want to be the rule-breaker. We ended the curse in the DFB Cup as a Bundesliga promoted club and now it’s about ending this curse as well, if you can even call it that. We’re approaching the game with humility and respect, but we aim to play with courage too. We’re delighted to be playing at home in front of a full house. That definitely helps. This season it's also going to be our trump card.”

Photos: FC St. Pauli