Niko Kovac on the Club World Cup, the Bundesliga run-in and the BVB fans | OneFootball

We have both an interesting and difficult summer ahead of us with the Club World Cup. What's your take on the World Cup; what's your take on the new format?It's a great platform for us. Just being part of this elite circle is a great thing for us, for BVB, for Black & Yellow.. You simply cannot put into words what kind of significance it carries to be one of only two German football clubs involved.

The greater the success achieved throughout the tournament, the shorter the preparation period for the new season. A coach can't like that...But it is fundamentally nothing new. International players only ever have three weeks of holiday after a major tournament and then the preparation period gets under way. The same thing awaits us this summer. I'm very relaxed about it.

Both of your predecessors, Edin Terzic and Nuri Sahin, had a strong connection to and past at the club and were welcomed with ovations by the supporters when they were appointed to the position. You initially encountered scepticism in the forums but that has now completely changed. Can you get on board with that: Earning trust rather than being praised in advance?Everyone should be given a chance, regardless of whether they grew up at this club or are a new arrival. I believe that a coach from the outside can be very helpful. It was important for us to be able to work here in peace and to have the support of the people who signed us. When you feel confidence, you can give more back too. As far as the people in charge and the fans are concerned, I felt the confidence from day one. I don't read anything. And if I don't read anything, I'm unbiased and can make decisions based purely on my knowledge and conscience.

Do coaches really not read anything or do they have someone who secretly reads things to them?Reiner Calmund (editor's note: the Managing Director of Leverkusen until 2004) used to say: “If things aren't going well, don't read anything. If things are going well, you can read everything.” I try to stick to that. I don't want to be influenced by the outside; I want to decide with my coaching team based on what I see.

The most important person in Niko Kovac's coaching team has always been his brother Robert, who is two and a half years younger. Niko did not play more matches alongside any other footballer in his long and successful career (151, followed by Carsten Ramelow in second place with 149 joint appearances). The Kovac brothers played together at Bayer Leverkusen from 1996 to 1999 and then at Bayern Munich from 2001 to 2003. When Niko became a coach, Robert joined him as his assistant.

Robert was at BVB from 2007 to 2009. He played in the 2008 cup final and then experienced the first year under Klopp. What did he tell you about the club?That BVB are a huge club with great supporters, great enthusiasm and energy. We have often played here as opponents and usually lost. We're very happy that we've now been given the opportunity to coach this club, the second-biggest in Germany. We want to pay back the trust placed in us and hope that every single person in the stadium can feel that.

You know the Westfalenstadion from your time as a player and Signal Iduna Park from your time as a coach. What does it feel like? When you see this Wall, it's impressive. It's a pure football stadium. It's angular and it's bloody loud. There's real energy and power behind it. When you score a goal here, it does something to you. It unleashes so much energy. And it does the opposite to the opposition. The stadium has a huge influence on the game and the opposition. Signal Iduna Park is a very big trump card for this club.

How much of an achievement was it to put the team on the path to success, especially as regular training was only possible after the team's elimination from the Champions League in mid-April? As a coach, you need training sessions on the pitch. At the beginning, we were only able to do a lot via video analysis. If you can then train this over a longer period of time during the week with a team that has the necessary ability, it can be implemented faster and better. You could see from week to week that the unlucky elimination ultimately benefited us.

So we can assume that after the 3-1 win against Barcelona, the coach secretly and quietly thought: “It's a shame, but it's a good thing that we're out?”It was a double-edged sword, because we put in a great performance in the second leg. We believed that we could reach the final again. Of course, disappointment was the prevailing feeling at first. However, we were able to take something positive from the elimination because we played a very good second leg against Barcelona. That gave us a boost. If we could compete with one of the best teams in Europe, then we could do the same in the Bundesliga too.

When you look at the team after three and a half months, how much of what you envisaged is already being implemented? And what steps do they still need to take?The team is developing well. In technical, tactical, mental and physical terms, we are already on a very good path. But we are certainly not yet where we want to be. You could not expect that to be the case either. You have to give the players the time they need. The mindset, the approach, has changed.

Over the course of the season, everything and everyone was called into question. Does achieving the minimum objective of the Champions League mean that there are no calls for action from the outside, but rather that deductions can be made without emotion?You must not allow yourself to be led by the outside. Because if you are driven by the outside, you won't make the correct decisions. You have to sit down together and ask: Why did this happen? And then you can draw conclusions. It is not good to make decisions based on emotions, whether they're based on the disappointments that were previously there or on the joy there now. There's a saying in Croatian: “The morning is wiser than the evening.” Let everything sink in first, process it, weigh it up – and then you will make the correct decisions. It wasn't all bad, and it's not all good now either.

You are a very reflective person, you embody down-to-earthness. Is that also something that one or two privileged players should take note of? I don't want to give anyone any advice. We grew up this way; we were brought up this way. The time that I was able to enjoy as a teenager was a wonderful time. It shaped me and it's why I am the way I am. Quite normal, I hope.

How much of Wedding can be found in the Westphalian metropolis of Dortmund? We spent a lot of time outdoors in our childhood and had lots of fun with friends. We were carefree, unburdened. It was a wonderful time, much calmer than perhaps today with all the things that have an influence on us. We learned to work, we learned to fight. That is our DNA – and we will continue to do that until our last breath.

All of that is a good fit for Dortmund and a stadium that celebrates winning tackles like scoring goals...We've actually shown the players a video from the home game against Barcelona in recent weeks. There was a situation where Niki Süle won a challenge. People jumped to their feet. I showed that to the players so that they could see: it's not just about beautiful football. These fans also want to see that you slide, that you sprint, that you contest challenges, that you win them. And that's what's ultimately totally in keeping with this club – but also with Filip, Robert and me.