Central defender Jonathan Tah shared his teammate’s analysis: “The first half was brilliant from us. The way we approached the game. What intensity, how many chances we created,” said the 29-year-old. “The second half was just suffering together, defending together,” he said of the situation after the red card. “It’s not typical for us that we have to defend so much, so deep. But we showed today that if we have to, we can and are there. That we are ready for it.”
Tah saw the reasons for the victory in the team’s mentality: “I think the most important thing was that we stuck together as a team, that we believed that we could get through this. It was clear that there would be 50/50 situations, but in those we were always there and awake,” he praised.
“It was clear to us that we had to suffer together and go through this hell. We did that, fought together, believed in it. It wasn’t easy, but we did it,” said Tah proudly.
Captain Manuel Neuer said: “In the first half you could see who was the better team today. In the second half with ten men it’s of course not that easy and it was a fight.” He explained the good defensive performance with good preparation: “We do it often enough in training that we play outnumbered against outnumbered, ten against eight, and then we want to defend really well and we proved today that we can do that.”