„It’s a shame that we just didn’t score the goals“

„We showed that we can play very emotional football – against a team that has no equal in this league with Leverkusen. We invested a lot in this game. But we didn’t just fight or just wanted to destroy the game: we actually wanted to show that we play football and have a good plan and the boys implemented a lot of it well. Of course we make mistakes with the corner that leads to the first goal conceded. But this corner must never happen because before it there was a clear foul on Christoph Klarer. Just as we as coaches and players sometimes make unfortunate decisions, the game management also made the same today. If we continue to show what we showed today, I am still very optimistic that we will get through the relegation battle. I won’t lose faith in my boys and will continue to support them.“

„The game was even tougher than we expected. It was a damn difficult game for us. We played well until the break. It’s okay that we’re leading. But after that we come out badly: Darmstadt was the better team after that, they played good and courageous football. At half time, we then had a new challenge with the yellow-red card when we were outnumbered for the second half. What we changed during the break worked. We played deeper defensively and We always wanted to push the needle offensively through counterattacks. We certainly had to get through one or two situations happily. Ultimately, we are the very proud winners.“

„VfB Stuttgart has a very good team with great individual class. Our performance today was absolutely okay against a team like that. We ran bravely against them, sometimes man to man in defence. Conceding a goal after a set piece was of course unpleasant. But we continued to play very courageously and well from the back afterwards. After the break we made tactical changes, which worked really well and which Stuttgart had problems with. The yellow-red card played into our hands, but we could have been able to find better solutions in the majority. In the second half we wanted to play more down the wing, but Stuttgart defended that quite well. Sometimes we were perhaps too embarrassed to just play the long ball behind the defence, which is what that was would have been possible at one time or another. Now we have to keep moving forward – keep working, doing and doing.“

“The defeat is of course very bitter. We created a lot of chances and we can be proud of our performance, but with the flaw that we simply didn’t score the goals. Overall, we started Stuttgart bravely from the start and won some big balls in our game, which of course helps us offensive players. We also occupied the penalty area better today and had a lot of players in the final third, but we have to be careful when it comes to finishing. There were certainly a lot of emotions in the game today and it is also important that we bring this passion onto the pitch as a team. We want to be able to look in the mirror after every game and continue on our path. But we also have to collect our points this way.