“It’s extremely disappointing”

Ludovit Reis: We’re very disappointed. Everyone in the team and the stadium wanted and expected a different result today. Of course we wanted to win and we gave it our all. It’s painful to lose 2-1 at home. It shows how crazy this league is, it’s such a tight competition. There are still three games to go, and we’re still three points clear of third. We mustn’t start to be negative or doubt ourselves. We need to keep going and try and claim all three points in Darmstadt next week. 

Davie Selke: It’s difficult to find the right words. We’re disappointed. We weren’t able to take this chance that was presented to us. Everything was in place. The fans pushed us on, there was a real buzz around the stadium before the game and we ignited that with our equaliser as well. It’s important, however, that we keep our heads. There’s a reason why we are where we are in the league. We’ve earned that ourselves. We’ve shown what we can do. We just need to get back to that level. We’re steady. That’s why I’m convinced we’ll show the right reaction and get over the line in the end. We want to feel today’s disappointment but also not let it get us down. We’ve already spoken about it in the dressing room- We weren’t able to take the chance today, but we just need to make sure we do in the last three games of the season.

Robert Glatzel: We faced good opposition today, and we were lacking a mutual understanding and a certain calmness on the ball. Those were our main issues. We also didn’t create enough chances. You have to try and keep calm during the run-in. Of course, we knew we had a chance to put ourselves in a great position and failed to do so. We need to keep a cool head and show what we can do in Darmstadt. Football changes so quickly. We’re now in the run-in, and everything can look so different week by week. We need to fully focus on the next game and get back into form next week. 

Daniel Heuer Fernandes: The tempo with which we played in the first half was far below what we set out to do. That might appear annoying from the outside, but we just didn’t get into the swing of things. We had our chances in the second half, but we couldn’t take them. We made it difficult for ourselves to create any real sort of attacking threat. We’re disappointed, we must admit. We had a great chance to take a big step towards promotion today. There are still three games to go, we need to pool our powers and stay strong. Our goal is clear, and it’s still in our hands. 

Merlin Polzin: Everyone connected to HSV is extremely disappointed. We missed the chance to come into half-time all-square, from which point we could have regrouped. It would have meant that we came out well from what was a poor first half. We demanded ourselves to be clear and consistent in defence, because we know that at the end of a campaign, it’s not just pretty and attractive football that counts, but also clarity in defence. We were unable to attain this. Therefore, we’re very disappointed by the second goal right before the break. We spoke clearly about things in the break. We then had the majority of the control of the game, but we were too slow and were taking too many touches, and that caused us problems. We tried to bring on some more energy and power with our substitutes, but unfortunately, not enough came from it.

All in all, it wasn’t a good performance from us and we didn’t deserve to win. That said, we won’t lose too much confidence, because we lost against very strong opposition. We know exactly what we need to do now. We’re not going to convince ourselves that we can’t do something. When you have a dream and a goal, then you have to protect yourself however you can and smash through adversity. We’ll start tomorrow with the match analysis.     

Christian Eichner: Compliments to my team for a deserved win. We started well, looked for duels and were intense in the tackle. We also tried to play some really nice football, and we were successful in many parts of the game in that respect. In comparison to the last few weeks, we’ve made huge progress from a footballing perspective. If you want to win against a top side, you need to be in control of the game. To go back ahead so quickly after conceding was the game changer for us. The only thing we can accuse ourselves of is for not having put the game to bed at the start of the second half. That said, we’re very happy to have won today.