Rocco Teichmann from Viktoria Berlin: “The shareholder certainly didn’t cheer when we relegated”
job interview | Rocco Teichmann from Viktoria Berlin
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“The shareholder certainly didn’t cheer when we were relegated”
After being relegated from the 3rd division, Viktoria Berlin’s season ended on a happy note by winning the state cup. In an interview, sporting director Rocco Teichmann explains how you WILL reposition yourself so that you can attack again.
rbb|24: Mr. Teichmann, you and your club Viktoria Berlin have had a long season behind them – with relegation from the third division, but also with the state cup victory last weekend. How do you look back on the season?
Rocco Teichman: For a long time we wrote about playing with a club from Berlin in the third division and in professional football. Therefore, pride in what has been achieved prevails overall. The whole year was of course very challenging, extremely exhausting and of course disappointing in the end. We had basic sporting requirements that should actually lead to holding the class. That’s why it’s particularly annoying for me personally when you have to deal with a relegation. Of course, there are reasons why you are one of the four worst clubs in the league after 36 games. So it’s all the better to have another big moment with the state cup, which was always very important in the past in connection with qualifying for the DFB Cup.
That’s the look at the first team. How is the development of the club as a whole?
With the U19s and U17s we very likely qualified for the new Bundesliga season, with the U19s we even had the best year in the club’s history. Our women’s team is again playing close to promotion to the 2nd Bundesliga. At the end of the day, one can still speak of a successful year for the club as a whole. Looking at the first team, we will analyze a lot in order to incorporate the season into the further development of the club.
The club and the team were accompanied and filmed throughout the season by two rbb authors, Stephanie Baczyk and Uri Zahavi. A 45-minute film was made from the material, which will be shown on Wednesday at 10:15 p.m. on rbb television. Despite the relegation, it quickly becomes clear that the season was also a great adventure for Viktoria. What have been your highlights in the past few months?
The summer preparation, the transition to the season and the good start to the season were particularly safe. Maybe we were too successful at the beginning of the season to be able to deal with the situation well. We also got off to a good start in the winter with a great game in Cologne. The second half of the season really cost us strength, not least because of internal influences. The film really contains a lot of the problems and emotions – Corona, sporting success, but also failure. If you had wanted to write a screenplay beforehand, you probably would have done it that way – with a better outcome, of course. Although the cup success was of course another special and important moment and a highlight for the club and its emotionality.
Now Victoria is facing a major upheaval. Many players will try to find places with other clubs in the third division. What are the plans for the summer?
Of course, we also look into the past and consider what we can do better and what history we can write. We wonder how we can convince people to support us. With Hertha and Union, Berlin already has two not bad professional clubs, each of which is a brand. We & our niches find and have always seen our youth football in the foreground. It certainly wasn’t that easy to implant in the third division, even though we already had U19 players there. We play with the U17s and U19s in the top division – without an academy. I think this is unique in Germany. We have to try and bring the talent, passion and motivation that we have in those teams to the first team. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we’ll pull the entire U19 team into the first team and play in the regional league, but we have to integrate more of the boys into the first team. That WILL be the probable path, which of course is not new.
Thanks to the victory in the state cup and the associated entry into the DFB Cup, you have an additional 125,000 euros at your disposal. However, the budget will decrease. How much money are you planning?
There isn’t a specific number yet because we have to see how the talks are going. With our main shareholder, who is now known (Zeljko Karajica, d. Red.), we’ve talked a lot lately. He certainly didn’t cheer when we dismounted. Economically, this is of course a total catastrophe for a shareholder. But I never got a signal that he was going to throw down. The discussions are very productive and positive. The path is very clear, even if there will always be deviations. He’s completely behind. We will certainly have to make economic cutbacks and question ourselves, but with young people we have a competitive team on the pitch that we can also finance.
Is direct promotion the goal for next season?
We just want to do a good job. If you do that, you will eventually get good results. But the most important thing will be to build up a certain stability. But of course I am a sportsman through and through and therefore want to be successful. The goal must be to reach the next level. To do this, however, we have to advance certain fundamentals such as the infrastructure, the personnel structure and marketing. So that when we are in the third division again, we can be competitive again. We can only influence to a limited extent whether that is in this year, next year or in three years, because I see other teams – especially in the next season – further ahead.
Thank you for the interview.
Jonas Bürgener conducted the interview.
Broadcast: Sky blue football dreams, 05/25/22, 10:15 p.m