Kramarić: “We showed our qualities”

Andrej Kramarić: “We can be satisfied and have finally – after five years – reached the second round without extra-time. But the first 30 minutes were slightly wild, a typical cup game. Fortunately, I then scored a super goal to make it 1-1. That meant we had a little composure up until the break and then we showed our qualities afterwards. We’re satisfied with the 4-1 scoreline, even if there were too many chances on both sides towards the end. The Bundesliga starts now, we have a strong team and I hope that we’ll play a lot better than we did last season.”

Marius Bülter: “It was difficult, but we still played a good game. Even after going 1-0 down, we didn’t have the feeling at any point that we would not go through. But we must blame ourselves for the fact that we didn’t score our goals much earlier. We had huge chances before the break and should have scored four or five goals by that point. We were able to asset ourselves comfortably but must be even more stable and improve our chance conversion. But you could see that we’re ready for the start of the season and SC Freiburg.”

Pellegrino Matarazzo: “We made a decent start to the game. It was clear that Lübeck would start intensely. Unfortunately, we didn’t take our chances to calm a game like that down early on. It speaks volumes for the team that we stayed composed after going 1-0 down and scored our goals. We gifted Lübeck several chances to score towards the end; I didn’t like that but otherwise I’m satisfied with our performance.”

Lukas Pfeiffer (VfB Lübeck coach): “The win for Hoffenheim is absolutely deserved, even though we gave a decent account of ourselves. It was clear that we needed a good day with a good goalkeeper to have a chance. That was right today. We wanted to start well so that the stadium would be with us from the off. We always believed but Hoffenheim’s penalty to make it 2-1 caused a disruption to our game. Nonetheless, we experienced a great evening with many chances to score.”