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Hasan Kuruçay: Take the same organisation into the game
Hasan Kuruçay produced an assured display at centre-back in the home game against FC Bayern on matchday 2. The entire team worked tirelessly without the ball and defended superbly to keep the double winners at bay and earned a deserved point. Kuruçay’s performance was also recognised, with kicker naming him in their Team of the Week. In an interview with schalke04.de, the 29-year-old looks ahead to Friday’s (11/9) trip to 1. FC Union Berlin and discusses what Schalke need to do to remain solid at the back.
Hasan, Schalke 04 are back in action away to 1. FC Union Berlin on Friday evening. What will be the plan going into the game?
The important thing will be to stay well organised. Everyone saw against FC Bayern on Saturday evening how much that helped us. Of course, it will be a different kind of game in Berlin, but we need to take that same organisation into the game and build from there. We put a lot of work into that last season as well, making sure we had a clear shape both in and out of possession and that we always played from a solid structure.
Is that sometimes easier to do at home than away?
We managed it away from home last season as well. Even so, I think playing at the VELTINS-Arena always gives us an advantage. More than 60,000 Schalke fans, a full house every week and that incredible backing from the stands – it really drives us on. Of course, we’re coming up against stronger opponents now. You see that in every area: individual quality, experience, how well teams function as a unit and also the options sides have off the bench. Everything is a step up. That makes our development as a team all the more important. Every challenge like this helps us improve. But there’s one more thing I’d like to say about the Bayern game.
Go ahead…
There were so many moments out there when I had goosebumps. The whole stadium was behind us. It was unbelievably loud, and that gave us an extra push. It even felt different to the game against Fortuna Düsseldorf when we won promotion. As a player, it was an incredible feeling, and our fans were the main reason for that. We really appreciate it.
My parents came over from Odense and watched Schalke live for the first time.
You showed plenty of emotion yourself after your last-ditch clearance to deny Luis Díaz. What was going through your mind at that moment?
It was simply a very special game. With every passing minute, we believed more and more that we could get something against Bayern. But that game is over now and we’ve moved on. Our focus is on Union Berlin. Even so, I’ll always remember it. My parents came over from Odense and watched Schalke live for the first time, so it was a special evening for us as a family as well.
You’ve gone back to a five-man defensive shape in the Bundesliga after playing with a back four for long periods following the winter break during last season. How flexible do you need to be as a centre-back?
Flexibility is exactly the right word. Modern football doesn’t allow for rigid systems. Every formation is fluid. If a defensive midfielder drops into the back four during build-up play, it effectively becomes a back five. Equally, even when we start with a back five, there are plenty of situations where one of the wing-backs pushes on and leaves us with four at the back. The game is so quick and dynamic that you have to adapt constantly. Every week in training, we work on our shape and how we move within it. The important thing is that everyone knows exactly what they have to do and that we maintain our intensity. That intensity, while sticking to our shape, was how we won promotion. We need to reproduce that as well as we can. Hopefully that will help us get a result at Union Berlin on Friday evening too.
