FC Bayern and Wolfsburg featured in a thrilling match-up to kick off the new Bundesliga season on Sunday afternoon. In the end, the Reds won 3-2 due to an impressive display of willpower following a 2-1 deficit. “Towards the end, we showed the right mentality and that's why we won. Mistakes can happen. What really matters is how the team reacts,“ head coach Vincent Kompany summarised. “We're very happy and glad to take these points. It's good for team morale and for our confidence,” said Serge Gnabry who had scored the decisive goal. fcbayern.com has more of the post-match reaction.
Reaction to the win at Wolfsburg
Vincent Kompany: “I enjoyed this first Bundesliga game as a coach. There are three things to be said about this game: we were dominant in the first half, just like it's supposed to be. We didn't give away any chances. Then, the second half was bad initially and we quickly conceded two goals. Third, we showed the right mentality towards the end and that's why we won. Mistakes can happen. What really matters is how the team reacts. It took a while for us to react in the second half. Thomas Müller and Kingsley Coman came on with the right mentality and we played faster football again. At the end of the second half, we showed a great deal of courage to win the game. It wasn't perfect but we will push on.”
Joshua Kimmich: “I think the first half wasn't all bad. We didn't give any chances away and had two or three very good opportunities ourselves. We deserved to take the lead. Then, we had a bad start to the second half and almost threw the game away. The reaction following Wolfsburg's second was good again. It was a really tough game to play. The pitch was very dry and that prevented a real flow for both teams. In the end, I'm happy we won. We showed the right mentality.”
Serge Gnabry: “We're very happy and glad to take these points. It's good for team morale and for our confidence. It was a very tough Sunday afternoon. To an extent, the equaliser right after half-time knocked us out of our stride. Then we conceded the second on top and that made it even more difficult. But in the end, we rewarded ourselves and scored the winner.”
Reaction from the Wolfsburg camp
Ralph Hasenhüttl (head coach): “I'm mostly proud of how we performed today. In the second half, we had several chances. We've developed very nicely in the past few months. In the second half, we played fantastic football. What we should have done better is score the third goal against Bayern. You can't defend against everything Bayern do. We threw ourselves into every challenge.”
Maximilian Arnold (captain): “In the end, we lost. However, the way we fought and the passion we showed was good. We were on an equal level and would have deserved a draw.“
Patrick Wimmer (forward): “It was a great game for the spectators. We felt good and had a clear plan as to how we wanted to play. We did a great job implementing this plan and even took the lead. Unfortunately, we were unable to see it through until the end. We didn't collect any points today but we can build on this.”
The match report:
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