FC St. Pauli

Marcel Hartel on…

…the buzz before the resumption: "We're glad to be getting back to business at the weekend. Preparations are always strenuous and intensive, so we're all the happier to be playing for points again."

…the Benidorm training camp and the friendly against Osnabrück: "We had ten intensive days. We worked very hard and grew closer together as a team. It was fun to work with the lads. We had high ambitions for the friendly and definitely wanted to win it, but unfortunately we were unable to do that. We've gone over the game and taken the positives from it. It wasn't all bad, we played very well in spells. We lacked a cutting edge in the final third and have analysed that."

…the absence of Jackson Irvine: "We all feel the loss of Jacko as captain and personality on the pitch, but we'll definitely make up for it as a team. We did that very well when he was injured and I'm positive we can do it again."

…opponents Kaiserslautern: "They were very busy on the transfer market this winter and have signed a lot of players. Kaiserslautern are a very aggressive, compact and strong-tackling team. It won't be easy to beat them."

In the 2-1 victory in the reverse fixture, Marcel Hartel (here under challenge from Jan Elvedi) scored the winner from the spot.

…the three-way north German title race: "There's still a long way to go and anything can happen. Nevertheless, we're glad to be in contention at the top."

…emotions in training: "Every training session is about winning. You always want to win rather than leave the pitch as a loser, and the same goes for training. We try to get that into the sessions so it's on your mind at the weekend. It's about instilling a winning mentality in the team."

…new recruit Aljoscha Kemlein: "Josch has slotted in very well and been made to feel welcome. You saw the quality he has in the warm-up game and we see it in training, too. He's very strong in the tackle, has good awareness and has the ability to create things even when the space is tight."

…the lack of consistency in recent years: "We've explicitly set out to be consistent over both halves of the season this time. We simply have to go into games this year with the belief that we can do it. I'm very optimistic that we can do it."

…the points dropped in the first half of the season: "We could have taken more, and perhaps should have, especially in the last few games, but we're satisfied with the way the first half went and will try to build on that in the second."

…talks about a new contract: "My dream is definitely to play in the Bundesliga. We've agreed to keep things open and resume talks in early April to see which way things are going."

Photos: Witters