Daniel Farke has got the Norwich City bug after a stirring Championship fightback to earn an opening day 1-1 draw at highly-fancied Fulham.
City's head coach – who made VfL Bochum midfielder Marco Stiepermann his ninth summer signing over the weekend – loved his first real taste of English football at Craven Cottage, which saw Nelson Oliveira strike late to salvage a point in front of the massed ranks of travelling supporters.
'The home team fans you would expect to be ready for the first game but our fans were unbelievable,' said Farke. 'Especially during the time when we had to defend and there were some dangerous situations against us. We had our backs against the wall and they were with us, all together. It was nice to feel that. Yeah it was great. A game of very good quality. It was emotional, with a lot of chances and the atmosphere was really good. Our main topic before the game was to stick together. We knew our personal situation, we knew we were facing a hard opponent but whatever happened we had to go out and show a togetherness. I think it is important for their mentality to experience those setbacks. We had them in this game, with conceding an unlucky goal and missing some chances. We are always able to score and come back and this was a good sign for us physically as well, because we got stronger. The guys can take a lot of self-confidence from this game.'
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Farke brushed off Fulham chief Slavisa Jokanovic's complaint that Oliveira's equaliser was offside.
'If there is a team who had reason to complain from this game it is us. That was a clear penalty in the second half,' he said. 'They will be up there, for sure. They have quite a similar philosophy to us and when they are able to control the ball in the midfield they are able to bring it to their high quality on the wings and striker positions. For me, they will be one of the best teams and I am sure not many will come to Fulham and get some points. We had to change some things in the first half because it was important to react. Fulham were better than us in possession. We had to calm their possession down and it worked. We controlled more of the game from then and of course we had to take even more risks in the final minutes.'
City make it nine – see Pink Un
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