During the interviews after the game, head coach Florian Kohfeldt had almost completely lost his voice. “I lost it somewhere between the noise of the Werder fans and the pitch. But that isn’t so bad, it’s more annoying that we lost the game,” said Kohfeldt after the unfortunate 0-2 loss to RB Leipzig. The Green-Whites had played well against a Leipzig side who are unbeaten in the league at home this season.
“It was a very close, intense game and we deserved to come away with something. But we didn’t convert the performance into points, so I’m not satisfied.” After an intense 90 minutes in Leipzig, Kohfeldt’s charges may be dreaming of what might have been after missing a number chances. Even so, the team can make the journey back to the Weserstadion with “heads held high.”
Fin Bartels: “From time to time we were very close. Who knows what would have happened if we’d scored? We can be very pleased with the performance in many areas, but in the end they converted their chances today and we didn’t. We’ve come away empty handed, which is disappointing.”
Maximilian Eggestein: “We left the pitch with our heads held high. We took what we learned in the last away game against Frankfurt and implemented it. Today was a different situation than against Hannover, where we controlled the game. We also had periods in which we were dominant today, but so did Leipzig. It was a very open game, and we dealt with that well. There were lots of positives, which is why it’s so disappointing to come away without any points.”
Thomas Delaney: “For me it wasn’t a typical game between two teams who are so far apart in the table. I feel like we held our own and we didn’t park the bus. We played well, had some good moments and asked Leipzig some questions. To my mind both teams had a similar number of chances, but a loss is a loss.”
Ludwig Augustinsson: “We were brave today, which is why it’s so disappointing to lose 2-0. Both the goals we conceded were really unlucky, but they happened too easily. The bottom line is we didn’t play well enough today.”
Florian Kohfeldt: “We put in a really strong performance against a Champions League team. We won the ball in some promising areas, occupied space and played some combination football. But we want points and we didn’t score any today, which is why we’re disappointed.”
Frank Baumann: “We were well set up against Leipzig. It was our goal to be compact, but also to free ourselves from their pressing and open up some space. In that, we succeeded. We were good on the ball, found ways to get forward, but the attacks didn’t end the way we wanted. The team can hold their heads high. They gave a strong performance, played with pace and covered a huge amount of ground. After 90 minutes we don’t have any more points on the board, and that’s what we need at the moment.”
Maximilian Eggestein: “We had lots of chances, especially in the second half. We were very dangerous in the final third and you could see how confident we were. In the end, unfortunately, we didn’t manage to score.”
Max Kruse: “At the end of the day, nobody’s interested who had the most chances or who the best team were; it only matters who wins. Last week somehow every shot seemed to go in, but not today.”
Florian Kohfeldt: “After the Hannover game everyone was raving about our performance, so I don’t see a fundamental problem in our ability to convert chances. Even so, we need to keep working so that we can make the most of our opportunities more consistently. There will be games where we don’t get six, seven big chances like we did today. Then we need to score with our first or second shot.”
Frank Baumann: “What worked really well last week didn’t work today. Next weekend it can all work out well again.”
Maximilian Eggestein: “Today we didn’t get any points. Next week we have a home game against Stuttgart that we absolutely want to win.”
Fin Bartels: “We have to keep working with the same energy and keep believing in ourselves. We’re doing well at the moment and we have another chance next week against Stuttgart.”
Thomas Delaney: “Right after the game, your head goes down. In the next two, three days, we’ll work on today’s game and see what we can learn from it. Stuttgart are a completely different team and they’ll be even more physically intensive. We have to go up against them with everything we have.”
Frank Baumann: “If we keep playing like we did today, we will pick up points. We have to do that in the run up to Christmas, especially in the home games. As we’ve been unlucky to drop points so far, we’ll surely pick some up against Dortmund or Leverkusen.”
