Mr. Zentner, is the distribution of roles among the Mainz goalkeepers still an issue?
I focus on what’s happening on the pitch and I just try to train well and play well. The rest is not my decision anyway.
Don’t you talk to each other about it?
No, but we never talked about it either. That was never an issue between Finn Dahmen and me. We try to push each other in training, have fun and both develop further.
Does it surprise you to still have Finn Dahmen as number two in the goalkeeping team, or did you expect that he wouldn’t be in Mainz this season?
You never know what’s going to happen in football, but that’s Finn’s way of thinking about it.
You’re going into your third season as the clear number one, and you’ve remained virtually injury-free during this time. What happened to make you so stable and consistent?
This development process has stretched over the past five years, and during that time I have of course gotten used to the physical strain and mentally to playing consistently. In the early days I played and then didn’t play, and I think it’s important for a goalkeeper to play consistently in order to be able to perform consistently. I’ve managed to do that quite well over the past two years, but of course it’s now about improving further. I believe that as a goalkeeper you have a lot of potential to develop further. Many of the world’s best goalkeepers are 30 or older, as experience is at stake. And as a goalkeeper you rarely get to be a regular goalkeeper in the Bundesliga or another top league at the age of 19. This development takes time. While outfield players might reach their peak at 27 or 28, goalkeepers do it four or five years later. That’s why I’m extremely happy that I’ve been able to gain this experience over the past few years and that I can hopefully continue to work on getting the best out of myself in the near future. That’s the whole focus.
In order to be able to continue to develop as a goalkeeper even in old age: How much does a goalkeeping coach have to constantly set new stimuli for this? Or is it mainly about routine that has to be practiced again and again?
Both. These processes are very important for a goalkeeper, so that you always repeat the basics. At some point you’ve developed your type, the way you play, and then it’s about seeing where there is still the most room for improvement. That’s the important thing when you’ve found your way of goalkeeping: working on your weaknesses to become more complete. That’s what it’s about.
I assume you analyze your performance with Stephan Kuhnert after every game…
…I agree.
At the end of the day, do you also analyze the entire season for yourself? Or do you switch off, want to enjoy your holiday and forget about the last three dozen games?
Yes, I switch off – but only after I’ve gone through the season. I think it’s important to review the round a bit and not let the last four or the first five games or anything else either gloss over the overall picture or ruin it. That’s why I look at individual scenes from all games at the end of a season. It’s important to improve your self-assessment as well – but at some point you have to put a tick on it if you know which things you want to do for the next season and which ones you did quite well and want to keep.
Was your previous season better than the one before?
Phew, that’s so hard to say because the penultimate season was such a wild one. I definitely had more good saves in that one, but that was also due to the fact that we were so bad defensively in the first half of the season and I just got a lot to do. Last season it was all about playing along, about being a goalkeeper. Because they were such polar opposites I find it hard to weigh the seasons against each other, but I always try to be better in the new season than the last. And I hope that next year I can say: “It was better”.
