Ruud van Nistelrooij also saw how PSV against AS Monaco was the underlying match for a long time. Still, his team managed to find a way to miraculously pull out a 3-2 victory after extra time and thus keep an eye on the Champions League. “You keep fighting and eventually you do it together.”
“It was a bizarre pot,” a happy and relieved Van Nistelrooij at ESPN opened his analysis after 120 very tough minutes. PSV came very close to elimination, but there it was at the end of regular time that the 2-2 via the head of Érick Gutiérrez. ,,This team just keeps going and believing. You drag out an extension here, which seemed almost impossible. Then the heads come together and you see that the match comes to a standstill at some point. Then we started playing football ourselves. There were very few times when we could do that.”
Van Nistelrooij then once again praises the perseverance of his team. PSV kept fighting and with ten minutes to go in extra time, Luuk de Jong nodded the decisive one. “They never give up. There is character and willpower in this team… Together with the supporters they put that on the mat here, because the match image was clear. We delivered an important performance from last week (1-1, ed.), which gave us certain opportunities here.”
PSV took the lead after just over twenty minutes, but mainly had to defend against AS Monaco tonight. “We didn’t come out of the oppression. They score two, then you know it’s going to be very difficult. But not impossible. You keep fighting and eventually you do it together. The release was great among the boys, the team, the staff and the supporters. But we are completely devastated.”
Only the Rangers FC of Giovanni van Bronckhorst, which tonight managed to turn around a 0-2 deficit from the first game against Union Sint-Gillis, is now still between PSV and the Champions League. ,,Rangers is a great club and I have experienced the atmosphere at Ibrox myself. They’ve made it to the Europea League final, of course, so it’s a good squad. And a nice Dutch get-together along the side.”
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