FIRST TEAM
05/13/2024

Bebou: "Almost everything came off"

Here’s what the players and management had to say following the 6-0 victory away to SV Darmstadt 98.

Florian Grillitsch: "We made a super start to the game and immediately took the lead. After that, we were in a flow and implemented the game plan well. We knew there would be a lot of space behind the defence, so we lured them in and then used our quick target players Ihlas and Maxi. It helped us that we took the lead early on. By winning 6-0, we also did something for our goal difference. Ihlas did superbly for the first goal; Pavel was irresistible following my second assist. We have everything in our own hands in order to play internationally next season. That makes us optimistic."

Maximilian Beier: "It was a lot of fun today. We made a good start, capitalised on our first chances straightaway and scored early. It almost doesn’t get any better than that. We knew that the Darmstadt defence would play a very high line and then wanted to attack the space in behind as we have some fast players in Ihlas and myself. We exploited that very well. We want to play in Europe next season. That's our goal; that's also our ambition. We want to be as effective as we were today against Bayern next week. That’s the plan."

Ihlas Bebou: "A lot came off today, almost everything in fact. We’re proud of the performance and it was important that we kept a clean sheet. We wanted to apply pressure from the beginning today, which worked. It was a step forwards. We want to build on this next week, we know what’s at stake. We’ll see what we can still achieve. We’ll need another performance like this against Bayern, then we’ll see what happens. It’s always difficult against them. But we’ll play to win."

Pellegrino Matarazzo: "We are of course satisfied, the lads played a good game. There was a high level of efficiency, but 6-0 is quite something. Our goal was to show togetherness. All the players were ready to defend for 90 minutes. We sought the space in behind and found that our game plan came off. It did us a lot of good to go in front early on and knock the stuffing out of Darmstadt. That meant there was less resistance. We knew that the three points were what counted but also that every goal was important. We wanted to score a seventh goal but we didn’t manage that. Now even more is possible. We’ve earned ourselves a final against Bayern."

Pirmin Schwegler (Director of Professional Football): "That was a super performance. We made a statement. You felt from the first minute today and could see from the second minute that we want to achieve something and that we have goals. We approached the first final very, very positively. We have another big game coming up next week. We can make another statement against Bayern and then we'll see where that gets us. We're in this position after 33 matchdays you can see that we've done a lot of things well over the course of the season. We're hungry for the best-possible result and now want to take the final step."

Torsten Lieberknecht (SV Darmstadt 98 Coach): "We put in a disgraceful performance today; there's no other way to put it. We spoke about a lot of things, but didn't put them into practice. You can't start a game like that. It was a shameful performance. We showed why we've been relegated and why we only have 17 points. It all came together today. We can only apologise to our fans. We can't produce a performance like that in our last home game. The scale of the defeat leaves you lost for words."

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