Reaction after #LFCTSG: "It hurts"

The players and head coach spoke following TSG's 4-2 defeat in the second leg of the Champions League Playoffs at Anfield.

Julian Nagelsmann: It hurts, because we have lost a game that meant so much. From an analytical point of view I have to say we played poorly. We started the first half really badly and left far too many gaps. Then everything got away from us really quickly. We didn’t set ourselves up well enough and our plan went of the window. We missed the chance to put on a performance like those we showed last year to give us this opportunity. It was a rare sloppy performance from us. We cannot change the result and we’ll now have to forget about the Champions League. It’s not worth getting shedding tears over. Liverpool are a tough side to beat, and we didn’t stand a chance today. We now look to the Bundesliga and Friday’s Europa League draw. We saw today that we lack that little bit of quality to reach the Champions League. But we have grown a lot following these two games.

Jürgen Klopp: It’s brilliant that the team and the club are in the Champions League. I am very happy about the deserved qualification. The boys played some terrific football at times tonight. We have been working 14 months for this. Roberto Firmino made the difference tonight. He gave the quick guys room to get down the wings and you could not fault him at all. It was hard after 20 minutes because they never stopped running and playing football, so you have to give them so much respect for that. They wanted to put on a good show and showed great spirit. The atmosphere in the stadium was superb. I could barely talk to my players on the pitch!

Sandro Wagner: We had a lot to do but we started the game confidently. But we then went to sleep for about twenty minutes, and I am lost for words as to why, I cannot explain it. We worked for a year to reach the Champions League. It hurts right now because everything was over after 20 minutes. We would have loved to have played in the Champions League of course but we can be very excited about the Europa League and are looking forward to that challenge. Congratulations to Liverpool, they deserved to win today.

Oli Baumann: Today was very tough to take. I’m struggling to put it all into words. We just didn’t get into the game at all and were too slow. Then it was really hard to get back into the game especially in such an atmosphere. We kept trying to press Liverpool though and win the ball back in dangerous areas of the pitch. We were punished for it harshly.

Mark Uth: We were outplayed in the first 20 minutes and quickly conceded three goals. I could hardly believe it and it meant it became almost impossible to salvage the tie. However, we kept our spirits up. We came here to win and knew it wouldn’t be easy but we gave it everything. We just have to forget about the game and concentrate on the Bundesliga.