“A proper cup battle” - Stuttgart match reaction

We gathered the thoughts from the players and coaches after Borussia’s 2-1 DFB-Pokal last-16 win at VfB Stuttgart on Wednesday night.

Stefan Lainer: That was a proper cup battle. We were made to work really hard after their early opener. We grew into the game though and deserved to win in the end. Stuttgart demanded everything of us, but we got stuck in and got our reward. We’re thrilled to be in the next round. When you’re into the quarterfinals, you of course start dreaming of the final a little, but there are still two big steps to take before that.

Lars Stindl: We knew that it would be difficult here in Stuttgart to take the next step on the road to Berlin, but we were determined to do it. We didn’t make a great start, but we came back really well. We created a number of good openings in the first half and could have equalised sooner. We didn’t allow their opener to faze us and didn’t get drawn into a scrappy game. We made it 1-1 and then grabbed a second right after the break. We defended really well for the rest of the game and hardly gave them a sniff. It was a really good cup fight and it feels great to have won.

Marco Rose: It was a difficult game, but we were expecting nothing else. Stuttgart’s team is full of young, talented players, who have a lot of quality and pace. It wasn’t easy to see them off, particularly when you go 1-0 down so early on. We knew about Silas Wamangituka’s strengths, but we still ended up getting caught on the counter by him from our own corner-kick, which wasn’t taken very well. You need to be present from the very first whistle and we didn’t get that right today. However, we made up for it. We probably won’t be able to catch Bayern in the Bundesliga, we will try and make the most of our opportunity in the Champions League even if we won’t have a whole lot of the ball, and in now in the DFB-Pokal, two big sides are out in Bayern and Leverkusen, and every round brings you closer to that ultimate goal. We want to keep our chance alive as long as possible. I’m delighted for the boys, who put up a really good cup fight. We’re into the next round and now we’ll focus on the next task at hand.

Stuttgart head coach Pellegrino Matarazzo: We got off to a good start, but we were a little too passive after that. We were almost treading water for a period, although we still managed to work a few set-pieces and whip some good crosses in. The second goal just after the break hurt because we only have ourselves to blame for it. We had our chances after we fell behind, but we couldn’t put them away and that’s why we ended up on the losing side.

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