Kramaric: "We started playing football far too late"

Andrej Kramarić: "We knew what to expect and we were prepared for it. But we're not the first team to have problems here in this atmosphere in Bochum. We started playing football far too late. Everything was still possible in the last 20 minutes, but we deserved to lose."

Oliver Baumann: "Bochum created scoring chances too easily. We tried to play forwards, but always lost the ball relatively quickly and generally didn't get out of our own half well. The second half was much better than the first. We have to analyse it and keep working hard. The simplest things are the most difficult. The fans were naturally disappointed, and they have every right to be. But we almost got relegated last season, we shouldn't forget that: We're playing a much better season overall this year."

Pellegrino Matarazzo: "Bochum were superior, even in the early stages. Things didn't go our way when the decision to disallow the penalty was made by mere millimetres. The free-kick to make it 1-0 then swung the momentum in Bochum's favour. We struggled to get out of our own half and often made the wrong decisions. Conceding the second goal before half-time stung us. We were only able to show what we are capable of in the final stages. Bochum displayed more quality today. We wanted to take something from this, you could see that from our fightback in the final stage, but Bochum were superior overall. We couldn't free ourselves from the constant pressure. When the crowd here get going, it doesn't make things easy. We made an effort, definitely more so than in the game in Mainz, but ultimately it wasn't enough."

Heiko Butscher (VfL Bochum head coach): "I take my hat off to my team for playing like that after eight games without a win. We wanted to put Hoffenheim under pressure and get stuck into the challenges. We had an excellent opening phase in which we weren't able to get a goal. I'm very proud of the lads. We brought what makes us special onto the pitch. The fact that we came under pressure in the closing stages is also down to our situation. But we had the will to throw everything into it until the end. We labelled the match the ‘most important game of the year’ and we lived up to that. But nothing has changed yet, we have to continue to work with passion and throw everything into it."

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