Interview: Jens Lehmann

ATVO: Jens, how much is the excitement building up back home, because the qualification is now over and the groups are soon to be drawn for the finals.

JL: Everybody is looking forward to this tournament, we want to show the world how we are as a people, how we are as a nation and how good we organised everything. We have some fantastic stadiums now which all look quite similar but that doesn’t matter because they are of fantastic quality, they have lounges everywhere, the infrastructure around the stadiums are fantastic, everybody loves our motorways, to go as fast as you want on it. Well, as I said before that its a good opportunity to show the world how lovely Germany could be.

ATVO: I wanted to talk about the stadiums because it seemed there was a policy a few years ago to build up the stadiums that you had or to rebuild them and to make it fairly cheap to get in for fans so stadiums of 70 or 80 thousand would be filled, is that the way it’s worked and how big a difference has been made from what there was before to what there is now?

JL: I don’t know really, whats been before on the price side, I think during the last few years the average attendance went up a little bit and now it’s supposed to be the highest of the world on average, it’s due to the new stadiums, but I think the prices can’t be that high compared to England for example, they are quite cheap.ATVO: You talked about the image of Germany the country as a whole, there’s a sense of change in the country, you’ve [the German people] just voted in Angela Merkel as the first female chancellor, so there’s this push for change in the generation I think.

JL: Yes there was a push for change, but now there’s a situation which no one really wanted to have that the big two parties collide and they already neglected their promises they made before the elections, you have to give everybody a chance and the new chancellor, Mrs Merkel, she’s in charge, we will see what is coming out, but I think the majority of people will be a little bit disappointed.

ATVO: Lets get back to Germany on the pitch, what sort of state is the German side in at the moment, how are your preparations going?

JL: Jurgen Klinsmann has brought a new spirit to the team with some new approaches, after the confederations cup where we built some drive and momentum, now we’ve gone through a phase of quite disappointing results, but, for example, the last game against France, we played a very very disciplined and tactical based style which worked out, I think quite well, we should have won this game and now there’s a kind of new spirit in the team as far as I’ve noticed it and that’s a good base to build on and to go into the next year, where everyone is so excited about the performance of our team.ATVO: Jurgen Klinsmann has a policy with the goalkeepers where it’s 2 games on 2 games off, how’s that working out for you?

JL: Well till now it worked out very well but now he might change his policy as far as I’ve heard, I hope to play the next game but it’s not yet decided and even for me it’s quite exciting like Christmas for young children [said with huge smile]

ATVO: How much belief is there in the German side about winning the tournament because the huge pressure on a home country, but often it does work out that the home country does win.

JL: We know that we will be the strongest side physically, that’s for sure, and every other aspect you have to see teams like Brazil, France, Argentina, Italy, England how they will show up because they come out of a very very exhausting campaign and that’s the advantage of the Germans, I think apart from me, everyone is playing in the German Bundesliga and they don’t have to go through this exhausting campaign , they have a winter break, and that’s why we will become the physically strongest side.