“You need the emotion and the fans to be the eleventh man” | OneFootball

Leonardo Bittencourt and co. came back against Leverkusen (Photo: W.DE).

Post-match reaction following home win against Bayer 04 Leverkusen

It’s been one of those matches that all 42,100 fans in attendance will look back on for a long while to come. Most would have written the game off after going 3-1 down with ten men, but Werder showed their incredible tenacity against Leverkusen and struck late to make it 3-3 and rescue a point . WERDER.DE gathered the post-match reaction from the team.

Head coach Horst Steffen: “What a buzz in the stadium! We haven’t had the easiest time in the last few weeks and so to make it 3-3 in the last minute like this is such a great feeling. I’m really proud of the team’s performance. The fans were just unbelievable, and that clearly had an effect on the lads. We needed to make it 3-2 just to get back in the game. The guys know that they have to stick together in the tougher moments, and they did exactly that.”

Goalscorer Isaac Schmidt: “That was the perfect debut for me, I’m just so happy. More than anything just because we came back from 3-1 down. No-one was prepared to give up, and that’s no easy thing when it’s ten men against eleven. When I noticed that after coming on, it gave me a lot of energy. It feels like a win.”

Goalscorer Romano Schmid: “It was another intense game. That made it such a powerful moment when Coulibaly scored the equaliser. Of course, we went into the game with higher expectations. The first half wasn’t as good, and we only started growing into the game as half time was approaching. That’s when we started to really believe that we could get something out of the match. The point we picked up was definitely an important one. We still need to get better at implementing our principles, and we’ll keep working hard to do that. No-one can dispute that we’re giving it 100 percent. Now, we have to build on that.”

Niklas Stark: “As I was watching the equaliser go in, I felt like I was right there. We had the mentality we needed to get the most out of the game. We’re elated that it came through in the end.”

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Leonardo Bittencourt: “I’ll have to check the archives to see if I’ve ever experienced a game like that. When you’re trailing 3-1 with ten men, then you need the emotion and fans to be the eleventh man. We had to get the ball somewhere near the goal instead of playing out from the back, and in the end we were lucky as well. Our courage in the game paid off.”

Senne Lynen: “We took a massive risk and we were rewarded for it. It’s a bit of a shame that I didn’t manage to score myself, but of course I’m so happy for the lad. We have to keep working hard, but I hope that we’re on the right track now.”