scfreiburg.com: Vince, the new season may be upon us, but you’re not new to all the build-up. How much do you appreciate having familiar surroundings for it?

I love it! I’ve known some of my teammates for a really long time, I know the stadium, I know the coaching staff, the city – it just makes life a bit easier.

The squad has largely stayed together from last season. Is that advantageous in your opinion?

Absolutely! You could see it after we were promoted to the top flight. The team stayed together and the year after [in 2016/17] we finished in seventh. Instead of bringing in nine players who have to get used to everything, we were able to ride on our momentum from the year before. The way I see it, that can also be a big advantage this season.

There have been six players promoted to the first team from the U23s in Noah Atubolu, Nishan Burkart, Kimberly Ezekwem, Kevin Schade, Kiliann Sildillia and Noah Weißhaupt.

They were already training with us regularly last year and have proven that they are really talented and can keep up with the first-team guys, then in preseason they built on that. It’s great that they have been able to do that and it also reminds me of when I was their age.

Does this addition of young players change your role at all?

I’ll try to take on more responsibility and help the younger players, but that won’t just be down to me. Nils, Günni, Chicco [Höfler] etc. can all do the same.

The fans also saw you in a different role on the training pitch, sitting on the lawnmower...

The reaction to that photo was really cool. People were asking me if I wanted a change of job or whether I might mow the lawns of the other players. If I have time, then maybe we’ll see (laughs).

It was great to see you playing again on the weekend in our first competitive game of the season. What are your thoughts on the match against Würzburg?

Every year we see how difficult it is for the teams in the top two divisions to play against those in the third tier or the Regionalliga. We knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we dominated in the first half. We held our positions well and also managed to create two or three chances. It was a bit more open in the second half and we wanted to get a second goal to kill off the game. We didn’t manage to score though and we also rode our luck a bit at the end. Overall, we deserved to win and it leaves us feeling positive going into the start of the league season.

Bielefeld await in the first game. What can we take into it from the Würzburg match and what do we still need to tweak?

It’s hard to know where we stand after just one match. Obviously we want to make the best possible start and we are going to Bielefeld to take all three points. We managed to do that in Stuttgart last year, but of course Bielefeld are also in good form. We want to play to the best of our abilities and show what we can do. The weather is perfect, it’s the start of the Bundesliga, 3.30pm kick-off – what could be better than that?