Kampl joins Halstenberg in backing Tedesco: "It's not the coach's fault."
Amid the purported pressure on their head-coach after a sluggish start to the season, both Marcel Halstenberg and Kevin Kampl have rushed to the defense of RB trainer Domenico Tedesco.
RB Leipzig are off to the worst Bundesliga start in the club's (admittedly very young) Bundesliga history. Two points from three games leaves the German Red Bulls in 11th place in the table. A reported visit to the clubhouse by sporting CEO Oliver Mintzlaff to deliver a diatribe leaves many feeling that trainer Domenico Tedesco's job may be in danger.
Speaking to reporters immediately after Saturday's loss to 1. FC Union Berlin, defender Marcel Halstenberg called any discussion over Tedesco's future at the helm, "absurd, of course". The German national team defender cited last season's turnaround under Tedesco and the DFB Pokal victory as reasons why the coach's position could not be questioned so quickly.
Speaking to Sky Germany on Tuesday, Slovenian midfielder Kevin Kampl joined his teammate in calling for more time. The 31-year-old went so far as to claim that he understood Mintzlaff's anger and admitted that the team were wholly dissatisfied with themselves.
"If you get two points from three games, that is of course too little for our standards," Kampl told Sky, "That Oli [Mintzlaff] is angry is understandable because we ourselves are angry. We had not envisioned it so."
Kampl went on to say that there was little chance of himself or anyone else succumbing to panic or disarray. In the defensive midfielders own words, "we have too much quality for that".
"In some of the games, we didn't stick to the match-plan or strayed from the match plan in the course of the game," Kampl emphasized, "That's not the coach's fault. Rather, we players have to face up to our responsibility and do better."