Mergim Mavray ridicules Macedonia very badly

Three matches, six points. How good is Hamburg?

If there were a lot of oscillations in past seasons, where they beat Hofenheim in the good days and could with bad luck from Darmstad, we are now more stable. Even in the 2-0 defeat in front of Leipzig, we appeared as a team. He's got a real team spirit. Of course there will be landing. But our objective will be to have fewer disappointments. I see a team working in the field very, very well.

Is this your development that has lasted several months?

Yeah. I've felt progress since I got here. We, as a team, don't let ourselves get off the road we've started and external factors now stop playing a big role.

The reason?

Now the focus falls on the team and what the team thinks. Every player has the feeling that it's important to the coach. Everyone knows that he has to help the other person, and each teammate is a friend. If you trust a professional, you get better, you follow Panorama. There's no secret here.

Strong pressure, but little effort to play ball. Is this the 2017 Hamburg?

Football has changed. It is not now common for every team to have a Diego in the role of organising by playing passively. Almost no team has it. Now it's important to play behind the ball line, even for big clubs like Borousia Dortmund, Leipzig or Hofenheim.

What else characterizes the team?

Team players think and protect each other. This saved us last season. If such things work for many months, you can say that this is team DNA. New approaches are perfectly adjusted. They well represent this DNA.

Actually you only have 15 professional players in good health, isn't the team too small?

When I came to winter, the team was big and everyone said it was too big. Now they say the team is small. The team has shown in the past that it can overcome this situation. This is a huge opportunity for those who seem to be far from playing. Every footballer has a real chance to get off the field.

How do you feel about the many talents trained in the field beside you?

A new player today is not like a new player 10 years ago. When you're 20 or 21 years old, you train to the maximum today, you feel the difficulty of competition so that you can be ready to play in Bundesliga. I wouldn't fear anything if any of the boys played against Hanover.

On Thursday, your former club, Cal, will play in Europe against Arsenal. Do you regret not being there?

I envy them, but I wouldn't change with them. Hamburg is an attractive club and I'm not the only one who sees it like this. The outside players want to come to Hamburg. And here I feel like I'm somewhere else. This is where I was taken as leader.

In 2016 you were part of the European Championship with Albania. And you're going to lose the 2018 World in Russia...

We feared that. The group with Italy and Spain was brutal. Although we hoped for more, we are satisfied with third place in the group. This is a big success for our country. More important than the qualifications, it was for our people to rank before Macedonia. That's what we did. But I'd love to play at Euro 2020.