Rot-Weiß Oberhausen have undergone a major shake-up ahead of the 2024/2025 season, which is about to begin. There is also a new coach. We spoke to Sebastian Gunkel

Rot-Weiß Oberhausen is breaking new ground: Mike Terranova is no longer head coach and Patrick Bauder is no longer head of sport. Sebastian Gunkel and Dennis Lichtenwimmer are the new sporting directors at Lindnerstraße

The budget has been reduced to around one million euros for the regional league team. Coach Gunkel and manager Lichtenwimmer brought some players into the squad from their own U19s and from Oberliga teams.

Forecasting spoke to Gunkel, who previously spent some time at KSV Holstein Kiel II, about the goals for the new season

Sebastian Gunkel, how have you found the first few weeks at Rot-Weiß Oberhausen? Where are the big differences compared to your last station?

The public perception is of course much greater than at Kiel U23. But at the end of the day, the sport remains the same. It’s always about soccer. In the U23s we also had some experienced players in the team, and I can also find them at RWO now. The differences aren’t that big.

RWO has scaled everything down a bit. Why was it still attractive for you to sign for Oberhausen?

I had various reasons. But the focus was on the development of the team. I simply feel comfortable in this area. I want to work with talented players and develop them further. There is also a core of experienced people. That’s very important for the hierarchy of a team. Oberhausen now has the chance to take a different path. I would like to follow this path. It’s a very exciting task. I don’t look into the past at all.

Can you compare your current team with the one in Kiel?

That’s difficult to judge. In any case, we have a diverse team. But we also have players at RWO that we need and want to develop. But, of course, the team here is more mature than the one in Kiel. The experienced players deal with certain situations differently. We have also quickly managed to implement many of the things we set out to do. Even though we’ve played a lot of tests against lower-ranked opponents so far, we’ve seen certain routines and have a lot of enthusiasm for the game. It remains to be seen how it will all look when it comes to scoring points in the league.

Who is your league favorite and what are RWO’s goals?

There’s no way around MSV Duisburg. As a new coach in the Regionalliga, I can’t really assess the other teams yet. We want to find ourselves as a team and develop it as well as possible.

What role does Moritz Stoppelkamp actually play? There are quite a few experts who claim that everything at RWO stands or falls with Stoppelkamp.

He is of course very important. “Stoppel” is really good for the team – you can see and feel that every day. You also get the feeling that he is enthusiastic and enjoys every session. He is aware of his role. But I also emphasize that we are spreading the load over several shoulders. Not everything in our game depends on “Stoppel”.

It’s early in the season against MSV – perhaps an advantage?

We’ll see after 90 minutes. We’ve also undergone a major upheaval. In general, I find the Regionalliga West very exciting. But the duels against Duisburg are of course characterized by the derby character and are special. We’re certainly looking forward to these matches