Match reaction

"We shot ourselves in the foot”

Hamburger SV suffered a 3-1 defeat away to Eintracht Braunschweig on Friday evening, with the players blaming themselves for the loss. Here is the self-critical match reaction.

Daniel Heuer Fernandes: This game completely took on its own dynamic. We had the first good chance, then Braunschweig missed their penalty, which swung the momentum back in our favour. Despite this, Braunschweig took the lead, but it was an okay first half from us. After the break, we allowed them too many chances and that tipped the game the way of Braunschweig. We were unlucky to hit the woodwork so many times at the end, but overall, it wasn’t enough from us today.

Sebastian Schonlau: Ransi had a huge chance after four minutes, with which we could have taken the lead, and then Ferro saved the penalty. We actually had the momentum on our side, but then an individual error led to them making it 1-0 which meant we were always chasing the game. When you concede a goal like that right after half-time, then it becomes extremely difficult. Braunschweig feel very comfortable when they’re leading at home and they sit deep and wait for the counterattack. We didn’t do a good enough job of breaking that up, and at the end of the day, individual errors killed the game.

"Individual errors killed the game." Sebastian Schonlau

Steffen Baumgart: We actually started well, but then went a goal down and instead of trying to calm the game down, we conceded a second and a third after half-time. We might have lost the game, but not because the team didn’t want it, but rather things happened that shouldn’t happen at this level. We keep shooting ourselves in the foot, just as we did today, and then you add the opposition’s wondergoal which you don’t see every day on top of that. So it’s the result of a lot of factors. One thing’s clear: we made the mistakes that decided the game, even if we were a bit unlucky when hitting the woodwork.

Daniel Scherning: We were lucky to not go a goal down at the start of the game, but we then grew into the game and had a really good phase of the game which ended with us being 3-0 up. We had a bit of luck at the end, because if HSV had scored a second, then it would have been much more tense. However, I think we deserved to win, because we put in a very cohesive team performance and had our best game of the season so far.