It seems almost impossible to win in Munich, as Werder fell to a 1-0 defeat this afternoon. Milos Veljkovic was sent off early in the second half, and captain Max Kruse called it “the deciding moment.” “It’s frustrating that the goal was such an ugly thing in the end, but we have to accept the defeat,” said Florian Kohfeldt.
Claudio Pizarro: “We waited for a counter from the beginning. It was an open game and we had a few moments in which we could have done something. But we didn’t have control for long enough. Bayern took control. Then we lost a man. It was then quite difficult and too complicated against Bayern with ten men. You can’t do much there.”
Nuri Sahin: “I thought we were good and brave for the first 20 or 25 minutes. We had one or two chances on the counter that we couldn’t finish well. Then Bayern put us under pressure at the back again. When you sit in your own half against Bayern, it’s been unbelievably hard to get out since the Guardiola era. They use the ball very well, position themselves well and we couldn’t get out. We wanted to be brave, and we were, but we didn’t get out enough.”
Max Kruse: “You can’t really fault us defensively, we did it well, but we wanted to have more up front. That didn’t work so much in the first half and the coach spoke about it at half time. We didn’t use the room well and we could have used it better. And then defending with ten men is difficult. It’s annoying that it was a goal like that in the end, but we have to live with it.”
Florian Kohfeldt: “I thought our ideas were easy to recognise in the first 20 minutes and the first ten after half time. Then we became too passive, we were playing on the counter too quickly and we didn’t keep the ball. There were some situations where we weren’t accurate enough when attacking.”
Max Kruse: “That was the deciding factor. We’d defended very well up until then. We weren’t doing anything up front with ten men. That’s normal. Coming back from 1-0 down in Munich against a team with their quality is very difficult.”
Florian Kohfeldt: “Just as I had the feeling that they thought they might lose something here today, the red card came. That’s what decided the game today, even though we defended heroically.”
Max Kruse: “We have to dust ourselves off, regenerate and beat Bayern at home. We lost our run of scoring today, but we want to go again on Wednesday. Getting to the cup final is our big aim.”
Claudio Pizarro: “Wednesday will be quite a different story. This was a Bundesliga game that we’ve unfortunately lost. Now we have to keep hold of our skill and concentration. The game on Wednesday is very important for us. We have the advantage of playing at home.”
Nuri Sahin: “If we’re a bit braver going forward on Wednesday, I can see us having a big chance. Something better than what happened in today’s game. We know what we’ve done wrong and where we need to improve. Both teams want to get into the final. It would hurt a lot to not be there.”
Florian Kohfeldt: “We’ll pull ourselves together and show them in a game of football with the Weserstadion behind on that we can score goals on Wednesday. It’ll be something different. We’ll be in our own stadium. Let’s go. I’m looking forward to it. Bayern obviously have a lot of self confidence. They’re all world-class players but I think there were moments of respect in the game today. We want to create more and be braver with the ball going forward.”
Frank Baumann: “The coaching team with analyse today’s game and draw the correct conclusions. It’s a knockout game and from the whole approach, it’ll be a completely different game. We have our fans behind us they’ll push us forward. That’s a factor. There will also be an extraordinary atmosphere on Wednesday. We’ll try to annoy Bayern a bit and see what comes out of it.”
