Karel Geraerts: Need to keep our heads up

Karel Geraerts:

We played well in the first half. We were well organised and kept things tight against a side that has been really successful in recent weeks and months. We expected them to have a lot of the ball, and also anticipated it to be a tough game with tricky periods for us. St. Pauli only had one really good chance before the break and Ralf Fährmann made a great save. We made it 1-0 at the right moment.

We were still really well organised in the second half and made a slight tactical alteration. They had more of the game after the break. They scored a penalty to take it to extra time and then scored again. Their winning goal frustrated me. They took it well, but it’s the kind of thing we had looked at before the game as part of our video analysis. We definitely did a few things well tonight, but I can’t be satisfied after a defeat. I’m still proud of all my players, who gave their all right until the final whistle. We now need to keep our heads up – our next game is in Nürnberg in just four days. Congratulations to Fabian Hürzeler on reaching the next round.

Fabian Hürzeler:

We made a couple of tactical changes at the break after going in 1-0 down and spoke about the things that hadn’t gone so well. Not everything was bad in the first half though. They barely had any chances and their goal came from a set piece, which we defended badly. We weren’t as dominant as we’d hoped to be, but that improved in the second half. We were really good on the ball, got into the box a lot and made few mistakes. We deserved our equaliser and kept on pushing for more after that. We should have scored a second goal before the end of 90 minutes.

It was important that we remained calm in extra time, showed some patience and stuck to our plan. My team did that really well. Overall, I think we were good value for the win. I would like to wish Karel Geraerts and FC Schalke 04 all the best for the rest of the season.

Sebastian Polter:

Speaking about the game so soon after the 120 minutes isn’t easy. Two set-piece goals ultimately led to them winning the game. We have to be more on our toes in future and defend them with more discipline. We put in a solid performance in the first half. The coach gave us a plan and we tried to stick to it. We were lacking some decent moments for counter-attacks in the second half, which would have settled us down a bit more and given us the chance to threaten their goal too – we need to work on that, it was better in the first half. We were compact overall as a defensive unit, much more so than in recent weeks. We need to make better decisions in attack and get more shots away.