Reaction to the 1-4 in Bergamo: "That can't happen to us at this level" | OneFootball

Borussia Dortmund was unable to capitalize on the position they had secured eight days earlier with a 2-0 home win and was eliminated from the Champions League play-offs for the round of 16 on Wednesday evening after a 1-4 defeat at Atalanta Bergamo. While the Italians celebrated, there was plenty of frustration on the BVB side after the match.

“Over the course of the entire game, we put in a very weak performance in many phases. We deserved to fall behind, managed to recover at times, but to concede four goals here is simply far too much. That cannot happen to us at this level, and that’s why we deserved to be eliminated,” said sporting director Sebastian Kehl, quoted on the club’s homepage in the mixed zone, expressing clear words about BVB’s disappointing performance.

Captain Emre Can didn’t really want to disagree overall, but did see that a better result was possible in Bergamo. “No blame on any player: but if you make so many individual mistakes, it becomes difficult to progress,” said Can, not leaving the errors before the conceded goals unmentioned, but also lamented the lack of efficiency in attack and drew an open conclusion: “And if we had taken our chances—and I really think we had several clear-cut ones in the second half—then in the end it’s very, very unfortunate. But to be honest, we also deserved not to go through. It hurts a lot.”

“We deserved to be eliminated”

Coach Niko Kovac, speaking to DAZN, was particularly frustrated with the number of goals conceded and how they happened: “It’s far too many. We were a bit naïve, I think. You can concede two goals, maybe even three, but we must not concede the fourth.”

Photo: IMAGO

Kovac, visibly dejected, made no secret of the fact that the defeat and elimination were justified: “It cannot happen that we play such a good game at home and then fail to bring that here, knowing full well that things get heated here. We are a Bundesliga team, we have to be able to handle that. We deserved to be eliminated. We did not deliver the performance that would have been necessary to progress.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.