The final whistle blows, and the dust settles on the previous ninety minutes. But the press soon wants to get the opinions from the Bundesliga trainers whether they have won, lost, or drawn. Here’s what they had to say following matchday 20.
Heidenheim 0-0 Borussia Dortmund
Frank Schmidt: “I think we had a very good layout today. We varied between midfield pressing and, above all, a strong centre and still managed to get the fast and lively wings under control with Gittens and Malen. Kevin Müller was there when we needed him, the sixes did a lot of work, but Tim Kleindienst also did a good job of pressing up front.
“I think overall we managed to allow relatively few clear chances to score thanks to good spatial distribution and passionate defending. In the second half it was clear that Dortmund had a lot of possession and would try to find the gaps. If that was the case, we always managed to shift cleverly and win the decisive duels before the penalty area at the latest.
“In the end, the point is absolutely deserved for us. We shouldn’t be so presumptuous and tell ourselves why we didn’t win the game. Of course it would have been possible, but in the end we got a point against Borussia Dortmund. The point is deserved and therefore a huge compliment to my team.”
Edin Terzic: “We didn’t deserve more than this one point. Although we had a lot of possession, especially in the second half, we had no penetration, were hardly able to develop any force and hardly created any chances to score.
“We were far too complicated, far too passive in our positions and had big problems with the space. We aim to play better football and create more chances to score in order to earn victory. Even though it looked a bit better in the second half, it was far too little.”
Bayern Munich 3-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach
Thomas Tuchel: ““We stayed calm and reacted well to being behind. We had great opportunities to take the lead very early, but then we had two or three minutes in which Gladbach was even in our penalty area. That’s exactly where we made the mistake in the build-up and fell behind against the run of the game.
“After that it was difficult because Gladbach proved that they can defend tenaciously and persistently. But Harry made the strange move and then we had opportunities to counter and add more. We have done our homework. It was a decent performance against a difficult opponent.”
Gerardo Seoane: “You can’t expect to come to Munich and not offer anything to the opponent with the quality and dynamism they have. This was particularly evident in the early stages. If we concede a goal early on, things could turn out completely differently. Then the team collected itself, developed better with the ball and also defended better. We may not have deserved to be in the lead, but we deserved to score a goal.
“In the second half we never lost face and continued to defend well. It was clear that another wave of attacks was coming. We are annoyed that we could have defended better and more consistently when we conceded three goals.”
Darmstadt 0-2 Bayer Leverkusen
Torsten Lieberknecht: “Congratulations to Leverkusen on their win. We performed well, but we don’t have any points. We created chances to score and developed a force with our first attack. But overall we didn’t have the punch to hit the ball so that it went into the net. We wanted to look each other in the eye after the game and ask ourselves: Did we do everything we could? We wanted to answer this question with “yes”.
“We had a lot of good situations and tactical things today that I liked. So I won’t say a bad word about my team. We lost today against perhaps the new German champions. Nevertheless, we are of course disappointed that we didn’t get anything worth counting. But we remain optimistic and persistent.”
Xabi Alonso: “It was a very good win for us and of course a good result. It’s not easy to win in this stadium. I know that from my own experience. We performed well and had good control, although Darmstadt had too many spaces in the first 20 or 25 minutes. We then corrected that and made it better overall.
“It was a serious performance from us today. The attitude was good. Therefore we are very satisfied. I wish Darmstadt and Torsten nothing but the best for the rest of the season.”
Freiburg 1-3 VfB Stuttgart
Christian Streich: “The team did well despite the start. But it was simply difficult to get anything against VfB with such quality.”
Sebastian Hoeneß: “The game started off great for us. We created chances and were very effective. Then there was the red card and that was decisive. We managed to make it 3-1 thanks to a tremendous piece of individual skill. I’m proud and delighted with the victory, and I’d like to dedicate it to Daxo, who suffered a serious injury during the week.”
Mainz 0-1 Werder Bremen
Martin Schmidt (sporting director): “In terms of style, it was a different game than last time, hard-working and aggressive, passionate, but unfortunately not enough. Too little to win, too hectic and too imprecise – so nothing comes of it. The slapstick conceded goal was bitter, but there were still 88 minutes to play, perhaps nerves also played a role.
“Today was supposed to be the starting signal in the fight to stay in the league, but it went wrong. There is a new chance on Wednesday. There is a place at the bottom of the table- a three-way battle. To get out of it, you need victories.”
Ole Werner: “We certainly had a bit of luck. Mainz played very well today, but we held up well defensively. Given that Mainz were so superior, we allowed very few clear chances. It really speaks for the team that we worked quite well even in phases that weren’t so convincing in terms of play. That’s how we earned the three points in the end.”
VfL Bochum 1-1 Augsburg
Thomas Letsch: “It was the game we were expecting; we were sharp from the first minute and scored a great goal. All in all, it was a good first half. In the second period we had less of a foothold in the game and I myself made a few bad decisions.
“We were too defensive, gave them too much space and the pressure grew bigger and bigger on us. We did have two chances on the counter too, though – if we’d made the most of them, we’d be speaking very differently now.
Jess Thorup: “I saw two very different halves. In the first 45 minutes we made it too easy for Bochum and played a lot of long balls. We spoke during the half-time interval about how we have to play our own game.
“We put Bochum under more and more pressure and at the final whistle we came away with a deserved point. It’s an important point for us, as Bochum are one of the toughest teams to face away from home.”
Köln 2-0 Eintracht Frankfurt
Timo Schultz: “The statistics are like against BVB, but the numbers above are crucial. The result. The key moments were the first yellow-red card and the 1-0 win straight after. At the back we played down the double majority well. It is very important that we kept a clean sheet. That has to be the basis. We also scored two nice goals. We needed the three points for the fans, the team and the club. Faride Alidou is doing very well, has heated up the competition and was rewarded with the goal today.”
Dino Toppmöller: “Congratulations to Timo. That was a deserved win for Cologne. In the first half we didn’t show the aggression and power we wanted. We had good ball wins at times, but didn’t do enough with them. We had too many easy ball losses and our own mistakes. You can’tThe statistics are like against BVB, but the numbers above are crucial. The result. The key moments were the first yellow-red card and the 1-0 win straight after. At the back we played down the double majority well. It is very important that we kept a clean sheet. That has to be the basis. We also scored two nice goals. We needed the three points for the fans, the team and the club. Faride Alidou is doing very well, has heated up the competition and was rewarded with the goal today. establish dominance like this.
“After the break we got out well, had the opponent in our own box at times and had a good move with Ansgar, who picked up the pace and played a pass, which was unfortunately offside. But just once is not enough. We punish ourselves. With both sending offs, which were justified, and with both goals conceded. Then it’s hard to come back. FC did well, was very aggressive and deserved the win. Next week we have to make fewer mistakes, show better structure and not play so sloppily.
VfL Wolfsburg 2-2 Hoffenheim
Niko Kovac: “The boys don’t reward themselves with a win. We made up two deficits, but made too easy mistakes when conceding goals. But I have to compliment my team, they gave everything and worked their way back into the game well. Hoffenheim initially caused us a lot of problems with their system, then we changed and things went much better for us. I like the way we performed today. So we will reward ourselves soon.”
Pellegrino Matarazzo: “If you look at the game in isolation, you take the point after a decent performance. But given our situation, that we’ve been waiting a long time for our next victory, it’s bitter. There was back and forth throughout the game, but the bottom line is that it was a fair draw. We have to stick with it and concede fewer goals, they were both avoidable. Two goals in Wolfsburg should actually be enough to take the three points. The team’s attitude was positive, we acted as a group and performed as a unit. The fans also supported us after the game, which gives us a good feeling.”
RB Leipzig 2-0 Union Berlin
Marco Rose: “Big compliment to my team. It was a deserved and important victory. The way it came about was also the way we planned and wanted it, even if we know that it can’t be taken for granted after the last few weeks. We scored two goals from set pieces and defended the opponent’s set pieces well. We showed something, we were ready, but we didn’t go too crazy. That’s good for the stadium and the stadium is good for us.
“We are in good shape up front and are scoring. The return of Willi Orban is just as important. His presence before the first goal was important, the way he goes in there and he gives a lot to our game.”
Marie-Louise Eta (assistant coach): “Leipzig were powerful from the start, but we were careful to defend our own goal and stay compact. We had decided to play boldly forward when we had the ball and we showed that throughout the game. Around the 60th minute we kept creating chances that unfortunately we didn’t finish, we have to work on that.”
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