Thioune: "We are dissatisfied with the sporting implementation"

Demanding a stand from his team on Sunday against the Lilies: Fortuna coach Daniel Thioune. IMAGO/Moritz Müller

F95 has successfully shaken off a poor start with a 7-1 defeat in their first two league matches. After advancing to the DFB-Pokal in Schweinfurt, they followed up with an away win in Paderborn and a goalless draw against Karlsruher SC. In their most recent victory in Münster, the result was again satisfactory, but nothing more.

"We're satisfied with the result," Thioune said at the press conference on Friday. "But not with the whole thing." The Düsseldorf team turned around a 1-0 deficit at SC Preußen within minutes and rewarded themselves for a better second half.

Previously, Thioune had spent a long time on the bench during the break, discussing the next steps with his assistant coaches. "I was recently asked why we were sitting out for such a long time. It's relatively simple: Münster doesn't have a coaching locker room where you can talk in peace, and it's nothing we haven't been doing for three and a half years," the 51-year-old replied.

The meticulous self-examination paid off. "We had problems translating our performance onto the pitch into something that was good in terms of content. But we managed to achieve a good result in terms of technique." Thioune makes no secret of his dissatisfaction with Düsseldorf's play, instead openly addressing the problems.

"We haven't yet reached the point where we'd like to be in the process of finding our own team. The balance and equilibrium have been reduced to a few moments in recent weeks." Even in training, Düsseldorf doesn't seem to have reached the level the ambitious second-division team would like to be. Thioune was often vocal during the week, with individual players hitting balls around here and there, expressing their displeasure with the current situation.

For Thioune, this isn't necessarily something to worry about, but rather something that's completely normal in the football business. "I shout on the pitch when things are going well and when I'm simply dissatisfied. If my goalkeeper gets a ball that was defendable, I'll allow him to shoot it into the stadium roof. It's completely normal that we can't be satisfied in this situation. You said I'll interrupt and explain things sometimes. I've been doing that since I came here and became a coach; it's even written somewhere in the fine print."

And if the guidelines aren't implemented, "things could get as loud as they have been now." "Welcome to professional football—you'll find that at every club. It's completely independent of the event. We can all pat ourselves after a win, but we won't. We're dissatisfied with the current sporting implementation, but extremely happy with the results."

For Sunday's home game against Darmstadt (1:30 p.m., LIVE! on kicker), "it's important first of all that we're back on the scoreboard." F95 hasn't scored a single goal at home this season, and they're looking to break the deadlock in their third home game. "As a team, we're challenged to give the crowd more than we've done in the last 180 minutes. We can't afford to end the season like we did last week in Münster."

Thioune also knows how this will succeed: "One of the fundamental foundations for rekindling this stadium's energy lies in the energy sector. You can act aggressively and be significantly stronger and more stable than we are."

It's about attitude, about the approach and less about "which formation we play in".