Interview with Thomas Stecher (Managing Director of Post SV Mühlhausen): “We are talking about an extremely instructive year”

Post SV Mühlhausen had to contend with a number of adversities at the end of the season. In this interview, managing director Thomas Stecher talks about the reasons for the club's mediocre league performance and the unsatisfactory China deal, but also about the Thuringians' continued ambitions and promising personnel plans.

Thomas Stecher, the end of the season was anything but good for Post SV Mühlhausen. No chance of a play-off place in the TTBL, failure to qualify for the Liebherr Cup Final Four and elimination in the last 16 of the Champions League despite a spectacular deal with China. Can you call it a lost year?

We are by no means talking about a lost year, but certainly a difficult and extremely instructive one. After several seasons in a row in which we played at or even above our limit, everything just didn't come together this season. In all three competitions, we have fallen a little short of expectations, and above all of external expectations. But the season isn't over yet: we still have two highly interesting games to play in the league, and of course we don't want our journey to end in the quarter-finals of the Europe Cup.

How great was the fear of relegation in the meantime?

I wouldn't say fears about staying in the league, but we did have a few worry lines on our foreheads at the start of the season. But we always believed in the strength of our team to finish above the bottom line on our own.

By now, an initial analysis of the problems of recent months must surely have taken place. What were the main reasons for the failures?

Of course, we have analyzed the season so far and subsequently looked at what went well and what went badly. One of the main reasons, apart from the poor start to the season, was the lack of consistency and the fact that we weren't able to deliver our best performance on every match day. However, with the program that the players have to play at the moment, especially on the international stage, it's no wonder. That's why we're not talking about a failure at the moment, but really more about a very, very difficult season, but also an instructive one from which we can draw conclusions and through which we naturally want to better equip ourselves for the future.

Your long-serving captain Daniel Habesohn is moving to TSV Bad Königshofen, and Irvin Bertrand will play for Werder Bremen in future. Is the upheaval in your team supposed to be the decisive answer to the difficulties of the current season?

I don't necessarily see this upheaval - in quotation marks - as the answer to this season's difficulties. We're not saying that Danny and Irvin are in any way to blame for the season and that we have to replace them. Despite our consistency in terms of personnel over the past few years, in this fast-moving table tennis business it's true that a little breath of fresh air is needed in a club and a team.

Following Mühlhausen's signing of top 100 Taiwanese player Liao Cheng-Ting, Kay Stumper is also coming to the Unstrut from champions Borussia Düsseldorf for the new season. What were the reasons for signing the international player despite his very mediocre season so far?

It's a great thing for us to have released a young German international from record champions Borussia Düsseldorf. You only have to look at his age: At 22, he is one of the players of the future in the German table tennis league. He is ambitious and I think that he also has the best opportunities in Mühlhausen under our great coach Erik Schreyer to take the next step and establish himself further in the league. Accordingly, it seems too simple to me to base the value of Kay's signing on his current record in Düsseldorf. We expect a lot from him and I think he will get a lot of playing time with us and will give us a lot of pleasure over the next few years.

Will Liao and Stumper strengthen your squad in terms of quality compared to the current one?

At the end of our squad planning, we've managed to bring an absolute top player to the Lotto Thüringen center court in Marcos Freitas. We are very happy about that. Thanks to our three new signings together with Ovidiu Ionescu and Steffen Mengel, who will continue to play for us, we can look forward to a great season.

Have you already set your goals for the coming season in Mühlhausen?

First of all, we simply want to achieve more consistency. With a five-man squad of the quality that Post SV is offering for the new season, that's a good goal, so that we can attack a little higher up in the table again. In the cup, our first goal is to reach the highly attractive Liebherr Cup Final Four, which is a gigantic tournament and attracts a lot of media interest. The team and our coach will work out everything else together. Above all, however, we want to return to the calm and successful waters of previous years.

Let's talk about the Champions League: With the signing of Chinese top 10 players Lin Gaoyuan and Liang Jingkun, Mühlhausen had pulled off a spectacular coup that attracted international attention. Why did the plan not really work out in the end?

Of course we were able to land a huge coup with these two. The fact that this was presented as a media stunt or a publicity stunt is completely abstruse. There have been unfortunate developments due to injuries such as Liang's or changes to the schedule in China, but Lin Gaoyuan was there for the second leg of the round of 16 and presented himself to our fans in our arena before his strong performance in Poland. I don't think there's any need to talk about major disappointments. The truth is that we were unfortunate to lose to the number three seed in Europe in the Golden Match by the narrowest of margins.

Your team is now in the quarter-finals of the Europe Cup, the little brother of the Champions League. Would winning the title be a suitable consolation?

The Europe Cup is more than just the Champions League's little brother, it's the second most important European competition. We are up against the Spanish top team Real Club Priego de Cordoba in the quarter-finals and we want to overcome this hurdle together with our great fans in the second leg to get as far as possible. We don't necessarily need a consolation, we're just keen to win a European title.

Will you be entering the top flight again for the new season - and if so, with extra players again?

One of our goals is always to offer our fans, our sponsors and our partners a great international competition. I do think that we will find ourselves on the European stage, but one thing is clear: external players in the model we tried this season will in all likelihood no longer be available. I think that we want to start internationally with the team that plays in the TTBL and in the cup and, above all, get off to a flying start.

Thank you very much for the interview, Thomas Stecher.

Interview: Florian Manzke