Börner on the Hannover 96 team: “We are too nice”
On Wednesday, after training, meet the substitutes’ bench in the HDI Arena. Doesn’t fit Julian Börner at all. The 31-year-old always plays for Hannover 96 unless he’s suspended due to too many yellow cards. Börner laughs: “Börner is among the top 3 in the league,” he says and laughs a little proudly. 96 needs more fighters like him, the scorer of the 1-0 in Aue says so himself in the interview, which he starts with a question: “How can I help?”
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May we call you headball monster?
I have to be able to do something (laughs).
Was that your goal in Aue or was it an own goal?
Victory was good for the soul after the month of March. As you sit at home on Sunday, you can see that Dresden is losing. We won, scored three goals away from home. As? I honestly don’t really care.
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Is 96 saved now?
If I said yes, my math teacher would call me and slap me on the lid. Five games, seven points ahead. To answer the question: No, we are not saved. We’ve felt the pressure over the past few weeks, but it’s not bad. That’s where we’re professionals. But we’ll take the sense of achievement with us and want to finish the season properly. Five games, that’s 15 points to get. I will die maximum score. What comes out at the end is up to us.
Was the problem in March, the lost cup game against Leipzig?
The disappointment after the cup was deep. But, well, it wasn’t just a class difference against Leipzig. What is Class Gap Increase?
two class difference.
Then you drive to Sandhausen and drive as before a wall. We analyze everything, hold talks, feel into the players, how does everyone think. But if it were all that easy to explain… The fact is: it was bad. And we can do better. My claim or our claim is to bring consistency to the performance. Let’s take a look at March. We have a home game against Nuremberg and we didn’t feel like we were being attacked. You just have to act differently. People come to the stadium, they’re happy, they pay 40 euros to go to the home game, and we offer something like that. That will not do. I don’t want to preach here now, but that’s not how it works.
Doesn’t even feel suitable for the third division
They preach a lot on the square, also very loudly. Is this necessary to wake everyone up?
I come through mentality. I want to push the guys, that’s my job at the back of the chain. I don’t have to ask that of Maxi Beier or Sebastian Kerk. That’s not even their job. It’s their job to create chances in the last third and shoot the ball into the net.
It would be an idea to say: 96 needs more players like Borner. Do you talk to manager Marcus Mann about it?
This is not my task. We exchange ideas. I’m about the following: We make games, you think we’re playing for promotion. Then we play games that don’t even feel suitable for the third division. We need development here and consistency. I wouldn’t stand up and say: Well, we want to get promoted next season. That doesn’t make any sense at this point.
They were part of the last upheaval. Don’t need a break?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m just a player and I don’t tell the sporting director what to do. That can work with the players that are here. It can also work with 15 new players. Nobody in Bielefeld thought we could do it. There was peace in there, and you managed to climb up. That would be the wish for us to have a certain work attitude towards the job, to step on the gas and to call on what we have in us at the weekend.
15 smoke a case of beer
Because of the work attitude: Do football professionals do too little overall?
I wouldn’t say so, but everything has changed a lot in recent years. Also with the new generation, with social media, vegan nutrition. That wasn’t the case when I started out. 15 men used to smoke, after the game there was a crate of beer. Now, of course, everything is a bit more professional: we have GPS devices, all data is checked, you can control the training much better. We used to have the Cooper test (running for 12 minutes, the distance is measured, editor’s note): Whoever runs the fastest plays. I think we print well, I go home exhausted after training. Of course Felix Magath, who stands for old school, is back now, gets out the medicine balls and trains twice a day. Does that bring anything? No idea.
Hannover is one of the fairest teams in the league. You alone have 12 yellow cards. Does 96 need more of your kind?
You can also say: Borner is late, plays too rough or the others are smarter (laughs). Seriously: Of course, the internal issue. We have to be clever, be gross, sometimes make a tactical foul. Sometimes we are too good and too kind. Definitive. It has to be that the opponent thinks: It’s not fun to play in Hanover.
Such as?
You can show strength outwardly with quality. This works out. This also works with dear players who don’t say a word for 90 minutes. Tim Walbrecht for example. He’s really gross in a duel, but he’s not a conductor on the pitch. That’s not bad either. The boy bites his way everywhere. Like at Schalke. Anyone can ask Simon Terodde about that.
Borner would like to read that
What role does coach Christoph Dabrowski play?
It’s no secret that Dabro and I have a very trusting player-coach relationship. But it’s easy for me to talk: I play every game. But I’m not going to stand there and say: It has to stay – or we’ll need a new one. That’s why we have a sporting director who decides how we’re going to start next season. In what constellation, I’ll read that on my cell phone when I’m on vacation.
And your friend Marcel Franke? His contract is also up.
It’s correct. I would like the newspaper to say: “Buddy Börner has the captain’s back” (laughs). I’ve been here for 13 years and have never had my contract extended in April. That’s just part of being a professional. But it’s easy for me to say that: I have a contract. But we are responsible for it ourselves. If we had won three games in March, some contracts might have been extended.