FC Bayern’s friendly ahead of the season resuming following the winter break ended in a 1-1 draw at FC Basel on Saturday afternoon. “We would have liked to win, that has to be our mindset. But it was a friendly,” said coach Thomas Tuchel after the game in Switzerland. “We’ve had an intensive week of training, but of course we wanted to win,” agreed club captain Manuel Neuer. fcbayern.com has all the post match reaction right here:
Christoph Freund: “It was an important test in front of a great crowd ahead of the first game back after the winter break. But we can certainly play better than we did today. Some of the lads made their debuts today and did well. They’ve also handled themselves well in training, but they’re still young and relatively new to the adult game. They have potential and keep learning day in day out so there’s plenty more to come in the future. When you see how Aleksander Pavlović is playing and consider what he already brings to the team, you can see the potential is there.”
Thomas Tuchel: “In the first half, we weren’t hungry enough in front of goal to capitalise on the opportunities we created, otherwise we would have comfortably won the first half. In the second half, we had twenty minutes that were lacklustre and they made us pay. The changes we made gave us a bit more energy and things got better again at the back. The boys were keen to lay down a marker. We would have liked to win, that has to be our mindset. But it was a friendly.”
Manuel Neuer: “We’ve had an intensive week of training, but of course we wanted to win the game. We created some good situations, especially in the first half, and we had the better of the chances. Basel made two or three clever fouls to break up our play and stop some of our promising moves. We also tried out a few new things. But basically, we’re happy with the week of training and will keep on working.”
Reaction from today’s opponents FC Basel:
Fabio Celestini (FC Basel coach): “We did well against a top team and deserved the draw, which has come as something of a late Christmas present. But now we turn to the game against Zurich which is more important. We played well against Bayern, the lads did a great job and I’m very pleased with our performance. But we have to keep going and know what our task is in the second half of the season. We now have to work on that in the coming weeks.”
Relive the highlights in the match report:
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