“It’s hard to think of a better feeling”

Romano Schmid has seen more minutes on the pitch this season than any of his teammates at Werder. The Austria international has become a key attacking outlet for the Green-Whites over the years, and his skills will once again be put to the test in the upcoming away game at Bayer 04 Leverkusen. The 25-year-old sat down with WERDER.DE to discuss what will be required of Horst Steffen’s side in Leverkusen, his own record against the Werkself and a recent attacking breakthrough against Frankfurt.

WERDER.DE: Romano, it’s often said that footballers tend to be suspicious types. Does that apply much to you?

Romano Schmid: I’ve tried to move away from that sort of thing in recent years, and so I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly superstitious these days.

WERDER.DE: Do you still have any gut feeling ahead of this game, considering that you’ve scored in each of our last three games against Leverkusen?

Romano Schmid: Yeah, when you hear things like that, then it’s hard not to. For me, it’s always something special to battle it out with the best, I just love it. Leverkusen have been one of the best teams around in the last few years, and it’s always worked out well when I’ve come up against them.

WERDER.DE: Werder are also undefeated in three against the Werkself, not least thanks to your goals. Are any of those strikes up there as personal highlights in your career?

Romano Schmid: The goal right from the edge of the box was great, but that opener away last season, with the outside of the boot, was almost even better for me. We pressed well, and Jens found me in the perfect position, so that was a really nice one to score.

WERDER.DE: As a team, you went over 300 minutes without a goal against Frankfurt and then managed to score three in just over an hour. Do you feel like it’s now clicked for you going forwards?

Romano Schmid: I really hope so! In both our games since the start of the year, we’ve had chances to score, and in Dortmund we just couldn’t finish anything off. Against Frankfurt, we also could’ve scored a few more than we did, but we’ll still take that momentum forward with us.

WERDER.DE: You also managed to record your fifth assist of the season against Eintracht. You’ve put up the second-most key passes in the Bundesliga this season, and only two players have escaped from more high-pressure situations than you. Is that final ball, or the one to set up an assist for another player, your best quality?

Romano Schmid: Really, my best quality is spotting my teammates in positions where they can make something happen. I’d also say my ability to find space even in games where we’re playing against a really high press. Of course, I feel that indescribable joy when I find the back of the net myself, but then also seeing how delighted Jovan was to score his first Bundesliga goal, it’s hard to think of a better feeling than that. Sam’s ball in to find me just before that was absolutely world class, though.

WERDER.DE: The performance against Dortmund was solid for long stretches of the game, and against Frankfurt, it looked like you’d secured the three points right up to the final seconds. How important is it now to actually get a win on the board?

Romano Schmid: That’s front and centre for us. The way we played with the ball against Dortmund and Frankfurt has to be the absolute minimum standard for this weekend’s game. If we play as good a game as that, then we also need to make sure we’re working together as a team to concede fewer goals. If things aren’t going as we want them to, you can end up conceding cheaper goals than usual. In both games, but especially in Dortmund, we defended decently from the front and won the ball off of their defenders well, which gave us good opportunities to break on the counter. Now it’s all about keeping a clean sheet and scoring a few of our own.

WERDER.DE: You’ll need a similarly strong performance if you want to get anything out of Leverkusen. Under Kasper Hjulmand, the team have once again established themselves as a top side. They are coming off the back of three defeats to start the year, though. What are you expecting from your opponents on Saturday?

Romano Schmid: They’re a team with brilliant individual talent. They’ll be absolutely determined to win, as will we. It’s absolutely the case that when we’re playing at our maximum, we can go toe-to-toe with the best. We need to just make sure that if we’re matching their level, we have enough cutting edge to actually take something from the game. We have to play with all the quality that we know we’ve got and give both the fans and ourselves something that we deserve.

WERDER.DE: Back when we last played away at Leverkusen, both you and Justin predicted in the toilets that each other would score before the game.

Romano Schmid: Yeah, we did actually (grins). That was really funny. It was definitely a fantastic performance from the whole team, though.

WERDER.DE: If you had to bet on anyone to score against Leverkusen this time, who would you go for?

Romano Schmid: I’m going to say Justin or Jens.

WERDER.DE: We’d love to see you get a goal, of course. Good luck for Saturday and cheers for the interview, Romano!