#BMGFCA: Match reaction

After the 2-1 defeat to FC Augsburg, we have the reactions of Stefan Lainer, Robin Hack, Moritz Nicolas and the two head coaches Gerardo Seoane and Jess Thorup.

Stefan Lainer: That was definitely the most emotional game of my career. There are definitely one or two things that the coach will criticise, but for me personally, it’s the moment of joy when I returned to the pitch that matters. It’s incredible how many people had me in their thoughts. You only really realise that when you come on and everyone’s screaming your name.

Moritz Nicolas: In the first half, I felt really good. If we’d played out a few counterattacks better, we could have scored a second goal. After half time, there was a period when we were sleeping. We can’t let that happen, and that’s why we’re very disappointed that we’ve lost the game. We knew that Augsburg would play very aggressively and run at us intensively. We were actually really well-prepared, but were missing a bit of incisiveness. We also lost the ball a lot when we shouldn’t have.

Robin Hack: We started the game poorly. Augsburg had a big chance right at the start. After the first goal, I felt like we were more secure. Straight after half time, we found ourselves in a bit of a hole and the two goals came out of nothing. It’s not normal to concede two goals so quickly. It was a difficult game physically with lots of long balls on both sides. We lost the most important 50-50s and made a few tactical errors. That cost us the win in the end.

Head coach Gerardo Seoane: We were asleep in the opening stages of both halves, both in the build-up, where we made too many mistakes, and off the ball, where we put too little pressure on the opponent. We also lost some important individual battles, which resulted in chances for FC Augsburg. Therefore, we’re not just disappointed by the result, but also the performance. I felt that we didn’t reach our highest level of performance.

Head coach Jess Thorup (FC Augsburg): I spoke with the team before the game about how we’d won just one of our last 21 away matches. We wanted to change that and we’ve done it. I felt that we didn’t deserve to be 1-0 down at half time, because in the first 10 or 12 minutes, we had the chances to score one or even two goals. During the break, we spoke about morale and belief, and the players showed both of those from the start of the second half onwards. After the two quickfire goals, we kept trying to score the third goal. In the end, we deserved to win.