Euphoria seized the travelling Bayern faithful, and the FCB camp was hardly less delighted by a magnificent 4-1 triumph away to Juventus, sending Munich through to the Champions League knockout stages for the sixth season on the spin. “The lads have earned a celebration tonight,” said director of sport Christian Nerlinger. “We’ve shown the world Bayern can play good football,” man of the match Ivica Olic beamed.
Reaction to Juventus v Bayern:
Christian Nerlinger: “The lads have earned a celebration tonight. We’ll let them unwind, relax and enjoy it. Even I was surprised by our total dominance, we played Juventus off the park right from the start and kept making chances. It was classy stuff from all our players. We’ve taken a huge step forward tonight. Making the next stage in the Champions League is extremely important to the club. We’ve fought our way back in the Bundesliga too. If we now beat Bochum and Hertha, we’ll be able to look back on a very decent first half of the season.”
Louis van Gaal: “All the players are thrilled, and so is the board. We’ve played exceptionally well away to Juventus, a leading Italian team. The first half was superb. I said nothing at half-time, and that doesn’t happen very often. I just said it was great, and we’ll win if we carry on the same way. And that’s exactly what happened. We’ll be even more confident now. But Bochum are a typical German team, and it’s always difficult winning there.”
Mark van Bommel: “We started really well, and should have scored a second before half-time. You often come out after the break and find you’ve lost momentum, but it was the opposite tonight, it just got better. I was a little worried we might have made it 2-1 a shade too early, but we comfortably saw it through to the end. It’s the best game I’ve ever been involved in for Bayern. We played some outstanding football, we used every inch of the pitch and got it out wide, which was the key. We’ve shown we’re a real team, prepared to fight side by side.”
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