Daniel Bauer reflects on Wolfsburg's draw with Heidenheim: "We had too little Initiative" | OneFootball

VfL Wolfsburg head coach Daniel Bauer was critical of his club's performance in a press conference, following a 1-1 draw with 1. FC Heidenheim 1846 at the Volkswagen Arena.

The 43-year-old from Andernach, Rheinland-Pfalz, was first asked to give a summary of the overall performance of the club, which dropped from eleventh to twelfth in the Bundesliga table and remain six points safe from the relegation playoff.

“Despite everything, we were not at all satisfied by the first half. Heidenheim were extremely compact, very passionate, offered us little space, especially in depth, and yet we should have done things better, solved them differently. Speed was far too slow; we did very poorly in terms of positioning - and above all, we had too little initiative, too little courage when in possession,” he said.

“To be honest, we refused to engage in situations where they could dribble past us, and we made things a bit too easy for Heidenheim. We simply cannot afford to concede a goal.”

Looking at Heidenheim head coach Frank Schmidt, who was on the other side of the table, Bauer followed by saying: “I think, and we can both agree, we would be very happy if we could keep a clean sheet. I think we both feel similarly in our roles as coaches - keeping a clean sheet was incredibly important for our team.”

“We failed again, just as they did today - and the goal just before halftime, should not have happened to us like it did. We need to either win the duel on the wing, or not even engage in it but simply defend the whole area properly. They were clearly the majority in the box and unfortunately we had poor placement.”

Bauer concluded: “I am surprised by the team's reaction, because we had another difficult situation from a mental standpoint. After that, in the second half, we shifted into higher gear, applied sustained pressure to an extent, without creating extremely huge chances - I felt that we were going to score at some point, and in the end, as Frank [Schmidt] said, the draw was deserved, because we did not deserve more based on our first half performance.”

Regarding the discussion with Schmidt and fourth official Patrick Ittrich that was shown on television following the final whistle, Bauer addressed the term ‘altercation’ from the media by saying: “We talked directly, there was no altercation at all.”

"It was a heated final phase, but the sport lives on that, emotion, passion - it is important that everything stays within reasonable bounds, and that was absolutely the case. After that, you shake hands, say goodbye, and then look forward to the next duel with each other.”

Lastly, Bauer was asked about the selection and role of 18-year-old right-back Jan Bürger in the squad, and selecting him for his debut in the starting eleven over more experienced options, Saël Kumbedi and Kilian Fischer.

“Jan is ready for the Bundesliga. I think he put on a very committed performance. Not everything worked out, but I think that he was very brave, he sought out duels, he defended well. As I said, he made some mistakes, but this is just part of the job,” he said.

“When we had possession of the ball, we also pushed our right-back high up the pitch - and we wanted to do the same thing with Jan today. It was simply a tactical decision to put him instead of Kili [Fischer] at the start, and Saël [Kumbedi] simply needs a short rest. It was an English Week [Englische Woche - German term for 2 - 3 matches in a single week], an intense one with two very, very intense matches for Saël, and that is why Jan was given the chance for his starting eleven debut today.”