Jupp Heynckes said he did not know how his team had lost to Real Madrid but insisted that he does know how they can beat them in the return leg – by playing the same way. Despite losing 2-1 at the Allianz Arena, the Bayern Munich manager insisted his side can still reach the Champions League final.
“Tonight’s match showed that Real Madrid are vulnerable, that they can be harmed,” Heynckes said. “We showed that we can hurt them, so we take hope from this. You should never surrender, never give up. You should play the second leg and try to win, and that is what we will do.”
Bayern Munich took an early lead and could have doubled that when Franck Ribéry wasted a clear chance with a dreadful touch before Madrid got the equaliser shortly before half-time, then scored a second to take a 2-1 lead back to Spain. “Had he scored that we might have won this match,” Heynckes added. He also described Madrid’s equaliser, scored by Marcelo, as “totally superfluous” and the “turning point”.
“It was a gift, just like the 2-1 was a gift,” Heynckes said. “You don’t often see a game like this in the Champions League, where you have so many chances and you don’t take them. It doesn’t happen often at all. It’s also not usual for Madrid to allow so many chances, but we weren’t able to take them. We didn’t take our chances and they were more effective. Those two things came together. We handed out presents.
“Anyone who knows me knows what I think and my players think the same way. We will give our all in the second leg to make up for the result in the first leg,” he added. “We saw tonight that we can create opportunities against them and it is our duty to do that next week. There are two matches, and the result comes from both. Real have an advantage, but we didn’t deserve to lose this match, we should have won it, so I’m optimistic about next week.”
Zinedine Zidane was delighted with victory but admitted the tie is not over yet. "It's not at all easy to win here, we know that," the Real manager said. "Can we do things better? Yes. But we can be satisfied with the result. We're going to have fight in the second leg. It's not done; it's never done. We're happy with the result but we know we'll have to suffer in the second game – we suffered here. We know we have to focus because if not, we will have a bad time of it."
(Guardian service)
