Maaßen: “We are bitterly disappointed”

Match reaction after the game in Unterhaching

After a 2-0 defeat in Unterhaching, FC Augsburg have been knocked out in the first round of the DFB-Pokal. After the match, players and coaches spoke in plain terms. These are their views on the game.

Ermedin Demirović: “Today is a catastrophic day. To go out in this manner even after a good pre-season is unacceptable. We were too poor in a lot of areas today, even though we worked well in pre-season and prepared a lot for the game. It’s inexplicable – it’s up to us to work on this. Nevertheless, even when it goes badly we have to look forwards, stay positive and put a line through this game very quickly.”

Finn Dahmen: “It’s difficult for me to put everything into words because we imagined this game going completely differently. It’s entirely understandable that the fans are angry. We are too. The Pokal is such a cool competition and we wanted to go a long way, so the disappointment is even greater now. We now have to manage to put this behind us quickly so we’re ready for the league.”

Niklas Dorsch: “This a huge wake-up call. When you lose to a third division side, lots of things have gone wrong. We wanted to perform completely differently, but we didn’t bring that onto the pitch. Why it didn’t work is something we’ll look at. We are a tightly knit group and we’ll take a long, hard, look at ourselves, which is the next step in our development.”

Enrico Maaßen (FC Augsburg head coach): “We are bitterly disappointed and sad about this game. We had a good pre-season but we haven’t shown that at all. When there is pressure to get a result, other reactions then come into play, which you clearly saw today. We didn’t create enough goal-scoring opportunities. The final punch has to be there, we have to improve a lot in this area. This is more than a warning shot, we will take a look at it closely in the week. We have a home game against Gladbach ahead of us and we’ve got to make up for some of this there.”

Marc Unterberger (Trainer SpVgg Unterhaching): “In the first ten minutes, you could see the nervousness in my team, we were also thinking out there, ‘I hope that nothing happens’. After the opening goal, you also need the right amount of luck in certain moments. René Vollat kept us in the lead just before half time. Augsburg provided more of a threat in the second half, the most important thing here was that Phillip Tietz’s header in additional time didn’t go in. I don’t know what would’ve happened if we had had to play extra time.”