"It's hard to find the right words"
Domenico Tedesco, Péter Gulácsi and Xaver Schlager on the 4-1 defeat to Shakhtar Donetsk
Domenico Tedesco:
- "It's difficult to find the right words. The way the game played out was just crazy. It reflected a lot from the past weeks. The players were up for it and it wouldn't be fair to accuse them of a lack of mentality. They sprinted and they got forward.
We started the second half brilliantly and got the equaliser, but then Shakhtar Donetsk's second shot on target goes in. It’s tough. We simply lost possession balls too easily and were forced to deal with a lot of counter attacks. Therefore, we became less brave and didn’t play forward as much.
I'm of course very disappointed after the game. You just have to accept the way the game went. Everything will look a little different tomorrow. We'll have to look ahead and focus on Dortmund."
Péter Gulácsi:
- "Their opening goal was a big mistake from me and that shouldn’t happen. After that, we fought back and scored the equaliser. The second goal from Shakhtar Donetsk was a real kick in the teeth for us mentally. It was very hard to take. If you look at the game, we were going all out for 90 minutes, but we don't want to gloss over anything.
When we went 2-1 down we opened up a little bit, but we weren't as secure at the back. We really wanted to win the game, but a lot of things are going against us at the moment. We are prone to making mistakes right now and we’re being punished clinically. We’ve started the season very badly and we have a big game against Borussia Dortmund this weekend where we have to give everything. The coach can’t do anything about the goals that we conceded. We created chances and risked everything. The coach doesn’t have anything to do with our mistakes on the pitch, we are all adults.
We – the team and the coach – have to turn things around. We wanted to show a reaction today, but we didn't manage to do that. We didn't play badly. The four goals we conceded were effectively four own goals."
Xaver Schlager:
- "Their second goal was the real blow for us. If we had kept up the pressure for another 15 minutes after our equaliser and pushed Shakhtar back even more, it would have been a closer game. But they took the lead again with their first attack in the second half. That was a boost for them and gave them more confidence and they defended everything, which made it even more difficult for us.
We are all sad and dejected. We have high ambitions as a team and of course we want to win games. To lose the way we did is very disappointing. If we had clearly been the worse team and Shakhtar had played us off the park, I would have said, ‘okay, they were better.’ But today that wasn’t the case. The loss is difficult to explain."