Viktor Skripnik: “Lotte deserved to win. We imagined things would go very differently and are absolutely gutted. We didn’t expect it to be a walk in the park here, but we lacked the right attitude at the decisive moments. The fact that we went behind from the first set-piece made it very difficult. We managed to surprise everyone by making it to the semi-finals last season and this year we’re surprised to be out in the first round. That’s football.”
Zlatko Junuzovic: “It’s extremely disappointing that we’re out because it was so avoidable. We made too many simple mistakes and paid for it. We helped them as a result and they were able to play well. The audience suddenly came to life. We knew exactly what was expected of us – exactly what we spoke about. However, something happened to us from the very start. It was a huge wake-up call."
Max Kruse: “It was a shambolic performance today. We never took on the challenge. The equaliser was the only good thing we did - other than that it was a catastrophe."
Clemens Fritz: “We weren’t surprised by the way that Lotte approached the game. The coaching team repeatedly made us aware of things and it happened just as they said. Going behind early twice is something that just shouldn’t happen."
Florian Kainz: “We allowed our opponents too many chances and made it difficult for ourselves. We wanted nothing more than to win and are extremely disappointed. Perhaps the game would have gone differently if we had used our chances at the start but it isn’t something worth thinking too much about.”
Frank Baumann: “We didn’t do what we had planned. We wanted to defend with more purpose, develop our moves better, take our chances and be tactically disciplined when the game got hectic, but we didn’t do that. We weren't purposeful enough today, allowed ourselves to be provoked and moved away from our game plan. At the back we were too sloppy – both of their goals exemplified that.
