There was a good atmosphere at the SV Guntamatic Ried training session yesterday morning. No wonder, the night before, the Innviertlers defeated SK Rapid 1-0 in a hard-fought game. It was the second win in a row for Rieder, so the trust in coach Christian Heinle apparently paid off. Tomorrow the Rieders will continue with the round of 16 game in the ÖFB Cup away against the leaders of the second division Horn. For Heinle there are intensive but above all beautiful days ahead. On Saturday he will marry his wife Lisa in a church, a day later he wants to win the third league win in a row with the SVR away against Lustenau.
OÖN: After the 2:3 home defeat against Altach two weeks ago, quite a few people assumed that their time at SV Ried was up. The club put their trust in you, and wins against WAC and Rapid followed. How did you deal with the situation?
heinle: It was kind of a rollercoaster of emotions, that’s for sure. I always felt the full support of the sporting directors Thomas Reicheltshammer and Wolfgang Fiala, which is very good in such an extremely tense sporting situation, but it was clear to me that we had to turn the tide. It’s about improving our game bit by bit. For a club like Ried, however, the top priority must always be staying in the Bundesliga. We will definitely not do that stubbornly just sticking to a system for “beautiful football”.
After the negative run, were you still convinced that you could reverse the trend?
Yes, because both my coaching colleagues and the team gave me a very clear signal to do everything we could to get out of this situation. That shows the character of the team, which I’m really proud of.
You often put yourself in front of the team during the sporting crisis. This has been criticized by many.
Anyone who seriously believes that we’re trying to sugarcoat everything internally is seriously mistaken. Mistakes are addressed with sharp words by the coaching team, but this must always be done with respect and appreciation and never on a personal level. The number of points was not enough, there is no question about that. But I always said to the team: If we get out of this difficult situation, that will help us in the long term. I’m proud of the whole team and my fellow coaches. There will certainly be defeats again, but with every sense of achievement, confidence in one’s own abilities increases. We work every day to develop and improve our playstyle. That means we want to get better at football in all phases of a game. It’s not enough just to be deep on the defensive. If it’s tactically appropriate, like on Saturday against Rapid, to stand lower, then we’ll do that as a matter of course.
They generally value possession football. The team was lower against Rapid. What was the tactical plan behind it?
It was clear that Rapid needed a win against us and that they would play it offensively. With Grüll and Bajic, the Viennese have a lot of speed. You can’t give these players a lot of space, so we made it more defensive. The goal was to keep a clean sheet and keep putting needlesticks. Of course luck was on our side this time, unlike the unfortunate 1-0 away defeat in Vienna.
The ultimate goal for the SVR is to stay in the league. Are you convinced that you can do this?
Of course, with this team we can stay in the league, I’m convinced of that.
Tomorrow evening (7.30 p.m.) the round of 16 of the cup will take place against the leaders of the second division, Horn. How would you assess the starting position?
I expect a hot dance, a game at eye level. The cup is very important to us, we want to get as far as possible again, but to break Horn we have to go to our performance limits again.
You’re getting married on Saturday, and you’re going to Lustenau on Sunday. So a stressful weekend.
Stress is the wrong word. My wife Lisa and I have been waiting for this day for a long time. The wedding had to be canceled because of Corona, the date has been fixed for a long time. I will travel to Vorarlberg on Sunday with sports director Thomas Reicheltshammer. Hopefully there will be something to celebrate there in the evening. We tasted blood after the two wins and want to score again against Lustenau.
Goalkeeper Samuel Sahin-Radlinger is in outstanding form. Shouldn’t he have earned a call-up for the national team a long time ago?
The achievements he brings to us are the best application he can submit. Not only is he one of the best goalkeepers in Austria, he is also an extremely important leader for us.
Source: Nachrichten
