Peter Bosz interview: 'We've got a lot right'

Mr Bosz, after the double fixture weeks and the final match at Mainz, you now have a few days of peace and quiet. How did you spend Christmas and what's planned for New Year's Eve?
After the Mainz game, I first went away with my children for a couple of days and since then I've been on holiday with my wife in the run-up to the New Year. We'll celebrate New Year’s Eve at home in Düsseldorf and I'll be on the balcony enjoying the fireworks. We'll have fish and meat cooked on a hot stone. I discovered that in Japan and I like eating with chopsticks. All in all, it will be a very enjoyable night. Preparations for the second half of the season start on the third of January.

If you had a chance to look back at your first year under the Bayer Cross during the festive season, did that bring a little smile to your lips? How happy are you with your achievements to date?
If you look back at the whole year then you can definitely afford a little smile. It's not always easy to start as a coach in the middle of the season (Bosz joined Bayer 04 on 1 January 2019, ed.). I've had a lot of experiences in football but that was a first. We changed the style of play at the beginning of the year and demanded a different level of fitness from the players – all the lads were brilliant about that and they came up with the goods. In the final analysis, we’ve got a lot right in 2019. With the highlight in the summer: When we went up to fourth place on matchday 34 and secured qualification for the Champions League.

You keep on emphasising that results come first but what value do you place on the quality of the play? How happy are you with developments in that area?
Of course, football is about results and winning. But the people who come to the stadium and pay a lot of money for the privilege deserve to see attractive football. They should go be able to go home and be really happy talking about our games. Over the year, a lot of people have come up to me and said they liked watching Leverkusen play because they find our football very attractive.

If we think back to the early summer in 2019 from a Bayer 04 perspective, then you immediately think of the great comeback in the second half of the season. In retrospect, what was the crucial factor in being able to finish in fourth place and thereby qualify for the Champions League again?
The players just did really well in putting our plans into action. They were fit and fresh and we went a very long time without any injuries. There was a phase in the second half of the season where we lost three games in succession. We didn't play badly in that period but just lacked a little something. We got together and talked about what we had to change. On the final matchday, we had a bit of luck with the other results but in the end we had qualified for the Champions League. And that's what counts.

In the new season, the Bundesliga is tighter than ever at the top. What's your assessment of your team in 2019/20?
We definitely haven't got everything wrong in this period – even if the defeats at FC Köln and at home to Hertha Berlin were disappointing. We have won a lot of important games in the past few months. I'm thinking of the away game in Moscow in the Champions League when we were under a lot of pressure. We are still in the DFB Cup and also in the Europa League. And we are two points behind fourth place.

We know you don't like talking about individual players. But after having had a brilliant second half of last season, Kai Havertz has had a difficult time in the first half of the new campaign. What makes you confident he will be able to rediscover his form in the New Year – and thereby put behind him the negative reaction he received when being substituted in the final home game of the year against Hertha?
Kai is an outstanding player who's already made a really big contribution to the club. That's why I don't understand why some fans were so hard on him and booed him off. He's 20 years old and he always gives his all. It's impossible for any player in the world to produce his best form in every game – even Messi and Ronaldo can't manage that. Since I've been here, it's the first time Kai hasn't played really well. I can't understand why people boo one of their own players, particularly one from their own youth teams who is also a really nice lad.

As an outsider, you get the impression the team lacked the fluency in the first half of the season that they had shown in the second half of the 2018/19 campaign. Back then it appeared to be the case: If the opposition scored two goals then we'd score three or four. When will the team get back to that level?
We are human beings and not machines. Of course, we always try to do our best. But that doesn't always happen. I've now been with my players for a year. They have very good mentality, train hard and try to produce their best possible performances in every game. We haven't played so well recently. But we are working hard to get back to where we were.

Even if the new signings have again and again shown their potential, none of them have succeeded to date in fulfilling the expectations placed on them. You can't get away from feeling that it takes time to absorb the complex system of play under Peter Bosz. Is that right? Or are we wrong?
It's exceptional for someone to fly straight out of the blocks from the first day. In my experience, that almost never happens. New signings need time – and they get that with me. One example: Moussa Diaby. He joined us from PSG at the age of 19, unable to speak English or German. Only Jonathan Tah and I could speak to him in French. Otherwise the player is – solely in terms of language – isolated. But communication is very important in football. That's why he needed time to find his feet here and that's why we want to build him up gradually. And you can see: Now he can help the team. I took the same approach at Ajax: Matthjis de Ligt (now at Juventus, ed.) and Frenkie de Jong (now at Barcelona, ed.) didn't start playing for me straightaway. But if you bring them through gradually then they can perform. And that's the way I’ll act in the future too.

The start of the year begins with the training camp in La Manga. What will you focus on in the build-up to the second half of the season?
We've got two weeks to prepare: one in La Manga, one in Leverkusen. That doesn't leave much time before our first game at Paderborn. But we need to be fit and fresh again for that match. We want to have a good second half of the season as we did last term.

You are still in all three competitions. You are back in the Europa League in the New Year. What importance do you place on the two cup competitions?
In those competitions, there aren't many games before you have the chance to win a title. We'd like to win titles here at this club so those competitions are very important to us.

Finally, looking into the future: Where will the Werkself be in the Bundesliga table after 34 games?
Of course, preferably in first place. (He grins). But you have to be realistic: In Germany we have a very big club in Bayern Munich with Leipzig and Dortmund normally close behind. The Bundesliga is very strong and a lot of clubs are playing for a European spot – that includes us. The top four is our target.