“It's just great fun at the moment,” said Konrad Laimer, summarising the joy that FC Bayern exuded for large parts of the top-of-the-table clash against Borussia Dortmund. The end result was a deserved 2-1 win at home. “Credit to the team that we’ve won the first 11 games, but obviously I want to win the next 11 too,” commented head coach Vincent Kompany, who’s enjoyed a perfect season so far with his team. fcbayern.com has the rest of the post-match reaction for you.
Reaction to the match against Borussia Dortmund
Vincent Kompany: “Credit to the team that we’ve won the first 11 games, but obviously I want to win the next 11 too. And then the next 11 after that. You also have to give Dortmund credit, they deserved to get back into the game in the second half. The first half was almost perfect from us, very dominant – we could’ve scored two or three more goals. Dortmund then battled in the second half, they were aggressive and in my opinion we played too slowly. We broke up our own rhythm. Nevertheless, without a cohesive team performance you don’t win a game like this. It wasn’t easy in the second half but we defended pretty well and were always dangerous. That’s the key thing for me. It’s fine to have difficulties at times but you have to remain dangerous, and we were.”
Harry Kane: “I think it’s one of the biggest matches of the season. There was a lot at stake – momentum in particular. We often talk about maintaining this momentum, pushing on and wanting to win every match. And that’s exactly what we’re doing at the moment.”
Joshua Kimmich: “It was very important to win this match – also in the manner in which we did it. I thought the first half was very, very good. Dortmund then did better in the second half, but you could tell there was a real unit on the pitch. Even when Dortmund were on top for periods, it’s not that easy to beat us. We didn’t just impress with our football but also as a team. You saw that we dig in, that we fight against resistance. That was a very, very important win for us today.”
Konrad Laimer: “It always feels good to win a match. We’re the two best teams in Germany, so this match is obviously special. We spoke about it a lot in the build-up. In the end it’s an important and good win for us, even though we could’ve done a few things better or scored a few goals earlier. At the end of the day, it feels good and it was important to get the three points. You can always do things better in football, but at the moment it’s just great fun to play football with this group. The nice thing is that we can still get even better. We’re on a good path and we want to carry on the way we are.”
Reaction from the Dortmund camp
Niko Kovač (coach): “Obviously we’re disappointed: with the result and particularly the first half. The second half was considerably better. I think the spectators nevertheless saw a good Klassiker. It’s a shame we didn’t get the equaliser but we just weren’t good enough in the first half. We needed a few more minutes in the second half, then maybe we would’ve done it.”
Nico Schlotterbeck (defender): “I said to the lads before the match: if you want to survive in Munich, you have to play with courage, with forward drive, with guts, and we completely lacked that in the first half. We were untidy in our play and didn’t win tackles. The second half offers encouragement, though, because I think we were even better than Bayern. Nevertheless, over the 90 minutes and in the first half especially, it wasn’t enough overall and then you’re just not going to win in Munich.”
Pascal Groß (midfielder): “I think we had a poor first half. We didn’t really get into it, had little possession and didn’t win the second balls. The second half was much better. Because it was only 1-0, we were still in the game and had opportunities to come back. I think the second half was decent. We caused them problems and also had chances to make it 1-1. When you look at how consistent Bayern are, how dominant they are in winning games and how many goals they score, it’s not good. You don’t get the feeling at the moment that they’re going to drop many points.”
The match report:
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