Full of anticipation, Stefan Lainer, team kicker for the ÖFB, enters his first season in Germany. The fact that Marco Rose moved with him from Salzburg to Gladbach did not necessarily make the work on the pitch any easier, the defender said. But Lainer knows what ideas the trainer is pursuing. “He’ll go through with it the way Salzburg did,” he said. And “certainly not to deviate from his path.”
Lainer has been listening to Rose’s commands for the past two years, and according to plan he will continue to do so for a while longer. In his decision to accept Mönchengladbach’s offer for a contract until summer 2024, however, the coach did not play the leading role. “The overall package was simply ideal,” emphasised the 26-year-old in the APA interview. “There’s nothing to be said against it, except maybe Salzburg Champions League.”
Lainer revealed, however, that he could easily digest missing the “king’s class”. After all, he will play at least every other week in front of more than 50,000 spectators, with Gladbach in the Bundesliga, DFB Cup and Europa League represented. The association has great ambitions. “I didn’t have to think long about that,” he explained. “It was simply time for the next step, I already noticed that. I think I’ve won everything there is to win in Austria.”
The settling in at the league fifth of the previous season went without a hitch. “I’ve been very well received. There were never any issues, it really came support from all sides,” said Lainer. Getting to know the new players, who also have to make friends with Roses at Salzburg’s almost perfected Pressing, is of course a process. “Just because the training form is similar doesn’t mean it’s easy. You’re on the field with ten colleagues you didn’t play with last year.”
In principle, however, it also “fitted well from the start” on the lawn. Rose’s medium- and long-term goal is to make the team faster and more poisonous. “Basically, I got to know the coach in such a way that he has a plan for football, and he wants to implement it,” Lainer explained. “The automatisms that have existed in Salzburg still need time. But personally, I am simply convinced of how we play and how we want to play.”
To what extent the existing staff is already compatible with Rose’s ideas cannot be said. “Basically, the coach has already wanted to have one or the other player, he has got him,” said Lainer. Beside him so far the offensive forces Breel Embolo of Schalke 04 and Marcus Thuram of EA Guingamp came. Now it is important that all players accept the coach’s ideas.
In the end, Borussia wants to return to the upper third of the table. “The result is not entirely decisive. We have to work every week, become more stable as a team and not think so much about whether we want to finish fourth or fifth,” said Lainer, who described Bavaria and Dortmund as top favourites. “The two plus possibly Leipzig, depending on how it goes with the new coach (Julian Nagelsmann, note).”
He is especially looking forward to the reunion with his former Salzburg colleagues Konrad Laimer (Leipzig) and Xaver Schlager (Wolfsburg). But there were so many highlights in the game plan that he didn’t want to emphasize any game. “Every game is an extremely intense game, you have to do everything,” said Lainer. “I’m not looking forward to one game, I’m looking forward to all games.”
It doesn’t surprise him that the Salzburg team under new coach Jesse Marsch continues seamlessly where they left off under Rose. “I never had any fears that Salzburg would not make the transition. On the contrary, there are young players who are just dying to prove themselves,” reported Lainer. “Maybe they can also cause a stir in the Champions League. I’d wish that for them, of course.”
