"Luckily I was at the hairdresser's yesterday"
André Silva, Dominik Szoboszlai, Yussuf Poulsen and head coach Domenico Tedesco react to RB Leipzig's 4-1 win over Mainz 05.
André Silva:
- "We're all happy. We worked really hard for that win.
I try to create chances in every phase of the game. Before the opening goal, I saw that there was an opportunity to win the ball. Unfortunately for Alexander Hack and fortunately for us, the shots hit his arm.
I always work hard on myself. The facts that the coach and the team work so hard allows me to give my best. Every coach is different, and I’m very happy with our new coach: he brings a good energy to the team and we are ready to follow him."
Dominik Szoboszlai:
- "We wanted to work together as a team, fight for each other and implement what the coach had told us: making runs deep, forcing the possession and drawing Mainz to one side. We managed to do that.
Scoring a goal always makes me happy. Before every game, I always set myself the goal of helping the team. Today, I managed to do that I want to continue doing so.
Luckily I was at the hairdresser's yesterday and didn't make contact with the ball; that meant that Christo was not offside.
Our goal is fourth place; we want to reach the Champions League. We had half a year that didn't go how we wanted. But you could see today how we can play football"
Yussuf Poulsen:
- "You could say that it was the perfect start to the year.
I'm happy about every goal. Of course, I’d have rather scored the opener myself, but looking back, Mainz get a red card, we get a penalty and then also score the opening goal. It's not about who is the best striker. It's about scoring goals. We have three top strikers who score goals. I am very satisfied.
We've had a bit more time with the new coach, so we've been able to implement his ideas better on the pitch. You could see that today. We've been able to have a full week of training under him now, which wasn't the case at the beginning - we had a lot of games in a short space of time."
Domenico Tedesco:
- "Mainz set up very well in the early stages and pressed high. We were penned in a little and a long ball might have helped us to get out of pressure. We had a lot of possession, but we have to play it deep at the right moment to create more scoring chances. We don't need to beat about the bush: the red card definitely helped us. But if the red card didn’t happen, the shot would have gone in and we’d have gone 1-0 ahead that way. We controlled the game well after that and we’re happy with the three points.
We had several players either coming off a long injury break or returning from a Corona infection. Christo, André and Yussi were three of those players and I asked them how much they could play. After the discussions, we decided that Christo would come off the bench and Yussi would start.
We expect all our players to work. Goals will come or they won't. A striker is usually measured by goals, but not by us. André won and brought down a lot of balls and was a player to play passess off today. He also pressed well, like in the situation leading to the penalty. I'm happy for André that he scored. But today was not a game where you can single out individual performances.
When all the players in our squad are available, it's not so easy for the young players to play. However, it's good for them to be a part of the squad and train at the high quality that we do. That helps their development. They have worked very well this week. Sid was born in 2005. He’s a really good footballer who always wants the ball. Josch also works very hard, has played almost every position in training and always goes where you need him. He always does a great job, no matter where you play him. Hugo Novoa also has that certain something about him: he’s fast, he's good in one-on-one situations and has great awareness. They're all good players who just have to carry on the way they’re going."