Christian Heidel: It’s all about fighting

Schalke worked hard for three points in Christian Heidel’s home town. We spoke to Schalke’s sporting director as well as Leon Goretzka and Daniel Caligiuri after full-time.

Christian Heidel:

Of course, I wanted us to beat Mainz to win the game. However, I don’t enjoy winning against Mainz. Now that the game is over, I want to wish Mainz all the best in forthcoming matches. We knew today it’ll be about who wanted it the most and fought hardest. The conditions furthered that sentiment. We worked our socks off. We knew tonight wasn’t going to be a beauty contest. The lads threw their heart and soul into the game and you could see that. Thilo looked like he’s been in a boxing match and still kept jumping for headers. Everyone pushed themselves to their limit tonight.

Daniel Caligiuri:

I’m looking forward to watching my goal back! It was important after going 1-0 up that we continued to fight. The substitutions helped us out massively. Today showed we’re willing to fight to win games as well as play teams off the park. It was a hard-fought win and one that we’re very happy about.

Leon Goretzka:

We all know that the first half wasn’t a thing of beauty. We weren’t expecting it to be one as Mainz are fighting relegation. We kept fighting and scored one goal more than our opponent. Caligiuri’s goal was sensational. He’s had a great season and deserved that goal. However, in future, we want to also be able to control games like these.

Christian Heidel: It’s all about fighting