When there is potentially so much at stake, winning brings huge joy while the defeated have to wallow in despair. This was the case at the Allianz Arena on Saturday as Bayern Munich retook the lead at the top of the Bundesliga table with a chastening defeat of rivals Borussia Dortmund.
The Bayern contingent were understandably delighted (although still seeing room for improvement) while the Schwarzgelben were left to lick their wounds. Here’s all the reactions from the main actors.
Bayern Munich
Thomas Müller: “We had many chances to score. Overall, however, there was a lot of room for improvement. You saw the importance of the game. A 3-0 at the break gives you a good feeling. We should have scored three or four more goals. We worked extremely hard, but made life difficult for ourselves when we had the ball.
“But in the end it is the result that counts. We didn’t play everything perfectly, but we had the bite and the strength in tackles. The coach gave us a lot of security. We are happy, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us.”
Joshua Kimmich: “We had a relatively nervous start. You could tell that a lot was at stake today. Then we happily took the lead, but we still didn’t manage to control the game for 90 minutes. But we had chances, for eight or nine goals. Actually, we didn’t want to make the game so wild.
“But we didn’t succeed. So, we had to run after one or the other time. Overall, we had too many turnovers. We need more ball possession.”
Thomas Tuchel: “It was a good first step. For me, however, it was too open and too wild. Actually, we wanted to have more dominance in the opposing half. We started very nervously in the first half. We lost the ball too much throughout the game. That made the game very intense. The will to work against the ball was extremely high.
“There were a lot of positive things, but there was still a lot of room for improvement. Everyone knew what was at stake today. The will to endure and suffer when things go wrong was there 100 percent – that’s the most important thing. Overall, it was a very good start with a win. That will give us confidence and the desire to improve.”
Herbert Hainer (Bayern president): “The victory should have been much better in the end. In the first half you saw what the team is capable of. We could have scored six, seven or eight goals today. 1-0 was like opening a can, but we had that little bit of luck.
“After that we put on a lot of pressure. Thomas is a highly qualified trainer who is good for us. He approaches the task very professionally and does it very well. The eleventh championship title in a row is our clear goal.”
Borussia Dortmund
Marco Reus: “We got in well and then conceded a stupid goal. You have to shake yourself first and then you concede the next goal through a standard situation. Then we’re 2-0 down and it’s all the harder to come back. In the end, the result doesn’t lie. We deserved to lose.
“Now we’re two points behind again. It sucked how we behaved in many situations. We ran into an awful lot of counterattacks, which is actually atypical for us. Bayern played it well and could have even scored a goal or two more. It’s not a good evening for us.”
Gregor Köbel: “I don’t know how the ball slipped through. It was shit alright. You simply get days like that, today was one of them. The decision to come out was correct, I simply didn’t connect with the ball. It really, really hurts.
“After that there was a drop-off in our game, we were glaringly hit on the counter, Bayern had a lot of chances. I wasn’t able to help the team. It’s going to hurt for a few days. But now we need to come closer together as a team.”
Emre Can: “We started well. After conceding the first two goals, we became a bit wild. Not everyone continued to stick to the plan at that point. And then it gets tough here. We had gone into the game with an objective: whatever happens, whether we take the lead or we fall behind, we want to be compact. That was no longer the case.
“Perhaps we didn’t have enough self-confidence. We weren’t courageous enough in any case. We didn’t produce a good performance, even though we set out with big ambitions. Bayern deserved to win. But a lot is still possible this season.”
Edin Terzic: “We made a decent start to the game but 12 decent minutes is not enough in Munich. We didn’t envisage falling behind like that and then stopping to fight back. It was disappointing that it took us far too long to get back into the game after conceding the first goal.
“We’ll go home with a portion of anger. Tomorrow we’ll look at the table and see: there’s a two-point deficit, it’s the first Bundesliga defeat for us in the year 2023, and then it’s off to another competition on Wednesday. We want to produce a better performance in the cup and get to the next round.”
