Ilzer: "We need to stay on our path"

Christian Ilzer on…

…the opponent: "Mainz are a team that have made an impression in Hoffenheim in recent years. It's an energetic style, they have a very emotional coach and play energetic football. We now only have two days to recover well – both physically and in our minds too. We have to build up the energy that we will need on Sunday."

…Mainz's good defence: "They play very intensively. Mainz want to take few risks from the back but rather go forward quickly. They know how to stabilise the game and are good from set-pieces. The crucial thing will be to show more emotion and more passion."

…the defeat in Braga: "It was a short night. We sat down with the coaching staff and watched the game once again. It's not that we want to sugarcoat the game but we will also not blow the defeat out of proportion. We have drawn our conclusions and turned our focus to the match against Mainz."

…the conclusions from the match: "We got off to a horror start. We have to work on our positioning and also work on where we want to direct the game to. There are a few things that we need to tweak. But it is very normal that the automatisms don't kick in from day one and then consistently stay in place. On the other hand, we didn't have the same control compared to the Leipzig match; the 2-0 deficit affected us mentally, we lost our flow at that point."

…the reaction from the team: "Every path is characterised by positive moments, but also less pleasant ones. We were able to celebrate a very nice home win early on, which confirmed a lot. Now we've had a not so nice experience, but that's just as much a part of being a team. We have to stay on track and be prepared to make adjustments. We'll try to process the setback sensibly."

…the fitness condition of the team: "Workload management is of course a topic. The team is definitely fit, but every match has a different workload structure. We want to play lots of high-speed football. That's why we also rotated yesterday; we want to get our players through the many matches. The phase up until Christmas must be used to gain more and more knowledge for the starting line-up. Fundamentally, I'm a coach who brings rhythm and automatisms to a team."

…the goals up to the winter break: "We want to get a clear picture and create a clear hierarchy. We want to make progress with our joint philosophy and develop automatisms. However, the team feels more and more comfortable with its identity. We want to make good progress along the way, with the right results of course."

The opposition's form:

Mainz were unbeaten in November. At the start of the month, Mainz picked up a point in the goalless draw in Freiburg. Bo Henriksen's team then won their matches against Borussia Dortmund (3-1) and away to Holstein Kiel (3-0). But the victory against BVB was the first time they have won at home this season. Beforehand, Mainz had taken only two points from five home games.

Head-to-head record:

Hoffenheim and Mainz have faced each other 30 times in the Bundesliga: Mainz have the clearly superior record. The 05ers have won 14 times, Hoffenheim have triumphed eight times, while eight games have ended in draws. TSG have lost on their last three visits to Mainz.

Match facts and statistics »