Interview with Patrick Franziska (captain of 1 FC Saarbrücken-TT): “The ticker will definitely be clicked on from time to time”

Top 10 star Patrick Franziska and 1. FC Saarbrücken TT are at the center of a three-way battle with TSV Bad Königshofen and TTC RhönSprudel Fulda-Maberzell for just two free play-off places in the main round final of the German Table Tennis League (TTBL). In this interview, the captain of the Champions League winners talks about his team's “final game” in Bad Königshofen, the “corridor rumor” about Fulda's game at Post SV Mühlhausen and the importance of experience with “do or die” situations.

Patrick Franziska, three teams, including your 1. FC Saarbrücken TT, are fighting for the last two free play-off places in the TTBL at the end of the main round. Have you ever experienced as much tension in a regular season?

Yes, I have actually experienced such excitement several times. Once in 2016 in my last year at Borussia Düsseldorf, when we only made it on the last matchday and only because another team had lost. I also remember a similar situation with Saarbrücken, where our team, which was still very young at the time, only made it through on the penultimate matchday. So you could say that I'm familiar with situations like the one in Bad Königshofen on Saturday - and my teams have always made it into the play-offs.

Your team's performance in the main round final in Bad Königshofen has a lot of the feel of an all-or-nothing final: the winner is guaranteed a place in the play-offs, while the season may be over for the loser. Would you have thought such a constellation possible for your team before the start of the season?

It has to be acknowledged that the league has become such that no team could be sure for a long time. That's what we thought in our team as well. In recent years, things have often gone very smoothly for us when we had a lot of points early on. It's also the case this year with Düsseldorf and TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen that they're both marching through relatively safely, also because they go into the games with their points in hand with confidence and therefore also win games that are on the brink. It didn't go perfectly for us this time, but in general it can happen to any other team in a league like this.

How are you and your team dealing with this unusual starting position, at least at the moment?

We haven't actually changed much over the course of the season: We've always made sure that we can form a good double and have now also found two quite good combinations. We've improved in the second half of the season and now we have to make sure we win this one more game. Then everything starts all over again in the play-offs - for us too.

Saarbrücken have had to play even more important “do or die” games for several years now and have also won major titles several times. Do you see this as an advantage for your club compared to Bad Königshofen?

I don't know if it's really an advantage for us. But maybe Bad Königshofen still has something in their heads, that they could have reached the play-offs against ASC Grünwettersbach and didn't make it. On the other hand, we naturally have the huge pressure of - in quotation marks - having to make it. I think you just have to keep a clear head now and nobody has any advantage or disadvantage due to other factors.

How does the match in Bad Königshofen differ from a “real” final?

In a real final, you're playing for a title, and that's what we want in Saarbrücken as a team and as individual players. But now we're playing for survival in Bad Königshofen, as it feels like we've been doing all season, for a place in the play-offs. For us, it's the hoped-for final game to make the play-offs on our own, but on the other hand, the play-offs are only an interim goal for us because we want to play for titles and win titles. But you can only do one thing at a time, and that's why the game in Bad Königshofen is by far the most important for us now.

Is Saarbrücken's preparation different than usual due to the importance of the game?

Apart from Cedric Meissner and myself, the boys are preparing in Saarbrücken. The two of us, on the other hand, have a national team training course in Düsseldorf all week. But of course we're also focusing on the Bundesliga game. Nevertheless, it's often a dilemma because it's difficult to concentrate 100 percent on the Bundesliga game. But I'll try to train on the tables like in Bad Königshofen so that I'm fully prepared.

Will the Dyn live stream of the match in Mühlhausen or at least the live ticker be shown on a tablet on the Saarbrücken bench?

The live stream will definitely not be on, but the live ticker could be used, but would then disappear under the chair so that no player notices anything. But we're also in the fortunate position of being able to reach the play-offs on our own, so we're not looking to the left or right. I'm sure we'll check the ticker during the breaks, but we just have to concentrate on ourselves - then we can do it.

Have you and your colleagues already found the reasons why Saarbrücken, as Champions League winners, got into this tricky situation?

In contrast to Eduard Ionescu, Darko Jorgic and I didn't play as well as we used to. That's actually one explanation for our mediocre season with a few too many points dropped. That also created a situation in which everything didn't run as smoothly as it used to, in which everyone's mind was working, in which everyone was perhaps a little more nervous because everyone knew that we should actually be winning. It's well known that a lot happens in the head in table tennis and that you sometimes have something on your shoe, which makes everything a bit more difficult. But I still think we're strong enough to make it to the play-offs.

Does the Champions League final round in late spring in your own hall now feel like a kind of rescue parachute or life insurance for your team in view of the impending end of all TTBL title hopes?

The prospect of the Final Four feels good, of course, but on the other hand we not only want to win the Champions League ourselves for the third time in a row, but there will be a lot of pressure on us again, completely independent of a play-off appearance. But we've learned to deal with it. That's why, in my opinion, the Final Four itself is not a rescue parachute for the time being, because we want to achieve the maximum in this competition as well.

Thank you very much for talking to us, Patrick Franziska.

Interview: Florian Manzke