FC Bayern suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat at Rome giants Lazio in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 tie. "Of course we're frustrated and angry about the defeat. I don't know why, but we lost the plot at half-time," said head coach Thomas Tuchel after the match. However, everything is still possible for Munich in Europe's elite club competition, so the coach and players immediately turned their attention to the future. "We're not happy, that's absolutely clear, but we'll give our all in all competitions right up to the last second," declared Thomas Müller. fcbayern.com has compiled more of the post-match reaction.
Reaction to the match away to Lazio
Thomas Tuchel: "Of course we're frustrated and angry about the defeat. I don't know why, but we lost the plot at half-time. We lost the game, it wasn't that Lazio won it. It was a good first half. We had one great chance to score and two normal ones. But we ended up with no shots on goal, and that means you can't score either. After the break, we actually wanted to be a bit more courageous. But the opposite was the case, we did everything we could to fall behind. We gave the ball away twice straight after the break and completely lost our rhythm. We found it difficult to create scoring opportunities and capitalise on them. But we still have the second leg. We'll keep going."
Manuel Neuer: "We're not carefree at the moment. We knew it wasn't going to be that easy, but the first half was still decent. We carved out chances for ourselves. It's our fault that we started the second half the way we did. We bear the responsibility for that and have to put our hands up. You can feel the nervousness. It raises the question of why. We have to stick together and play the next game in Bochum as well as we can. We need a sense of achievement, positive emotions, a win. It's difficult to find the right words."
Thomas Müller: "There was definitely a reaction to the Leverkusen game in the first half. We should have taken the lead. We had three clear chances to score but failed to take them. When you get chances like that in the Champions League round of 16 at Lazio, you have to take them. But the second half was marked by indecision. It was almost slapstick the way we got ourselves into one mistake after another. It's obviously not what we set out to do. We're not in a situation at the moment where everything is coming easily to us. But we'll keep going and now have three weeks until the second leg. Now we're consciously looking positively towards the Bundesliga. We're not happy, that's absolutely clear, but we'll give our all in all competitions right up to the last second."
Reaction from the Lazio camp
Maurizio Sarri (Lazio coach): "If we always played like that, we'd have a different position in Serie A too. We could have scored another goal at the end, that's the only thing I can criticise today. I'm really proud of the result."
The match report:
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