Berlin (Reuters)
Borussia Dortmund coach Niko Kovac said that his team should start his career in the German Football Cup with strong performance against Root-Fis Essen, the third degree next Monday, as it is the championship with a shorter track to win the title.
Dortmund begins the local season with a match in the first round of the cup next Monday, while his rival has already played two games in the third division.
“We want to qualify,” Kovac said at a press conference.
Dortmund is also participating in the Champions League this season, after its fourth place in the league last season, and the German league will start next week, and Dortmund will visit the St. Pauli stadium after eight days.
“It becomes always an advantage when you play two official matches,” Essen coach, Dortmund, said in the cup. We are now in our third training week, I do not say that we do not have an advantage, on the contrary, but they have already played several consecutive matches. ”
Dortmund, led by Kovac, played a short preparation period this season, after reaching the quarter -finals of the Club World Cup in the United States last month.
“We wished for two additional weeks of preparation, we are happy with our participation in the Club World Cup, and there is no room for excuses, we realize the size of the responsibility assigned to us, it is a third -class team but it is a professional team, we deal with the match very seriously and then we will have an opportunity to qualify, if we think that qualification will come on its own, it may be a very difficult match.”
Dortmund has lived in an awakening since Kovac took his training last February, but he will miss his defender Niklas Zouel at the beginning of the season for injury.
Zoula is absent from the confrontation of Root-Fis Essen in the cup and for the first part of the league that Dortmund will consume in front of its host St. Pauli Stadium on the 23rd of this month.
