“Always believed we could win it” - Mainz match reaction

We gathered the thoughts from the players and coaches after Borussia’s 3-2 win over 1. FSV Mainz 05 on Saturday.

Matthias Ginter: It’s really tough to play away from home straight after an away game in the Champions League. It took a little time for one or two of us to get into the game, but that’s normal. We knew that Mainz would make us work hard and they certainly gave us a challenge. We changed things up in the second half and we maintained our belief – we always believed we could win it. We’ve conceded a lot of goals this season though, a lot of soft goals. We need to improve significantly as we won’t be able to score two or three goals in every game.

Patrick Herrmann: It was a high-intensity game with a lot of goalscoring opportunities. We’re just happy that we got the win. I hit the crossbar once and the goalkeeper also made a great save against me. It would have been nice to get a goal today, but at least we ended up with the three points. That’s what counts. We never gave up and kept pushing, so it’s a deserved victory. We know that we have quality, no matter who we’re up against, and the lads on the bench are just as good as the ones on the pitch. Now it’s about recovery and looking ahead to Tuesday’s game so we can put in a good performance against Real.

Oscar Wendt: It was a difficult match, but we nicked it late on. Sometimes those narrow victories feel better than big wins, and doing it on my birthday is obviously nice too. It’s three very important points for us. We will celebrate them on the bus home, but then the focus switches to Real Madrid on Tuesday. I think that everyone is enjoying the season so far. We’re playing every three or four days, and that’s just want to you want. We’re looking forward to every single game.

Marco Rose: I have to give credit to the boys today. We showed our quality, particularly at the end. The conditions weren’t easy, but we demonstrated real character. There were more things that pleased me today than there were negatives. We won, after all. There was a period where we let Mainz control things a little and they took the lead, but we upped our game at the end after a very strenuous match on Wednesday, which is a very good sign. Breel Embolo worked incredibly hard for the team today, both on and off the ball.

Mainz head coach Jan-Moritz Lichte: We’re fuming to have lost the game like that. We deserved more and didn’t take our chances to go 3-1 up. We’re furious about the penalty; I think the decision could easily go the other way. After that, I think we started to panic that we’d lose the game. We weren’t alert enough from the set piece. The corner was delivered and headed well, but we were a yard off the pace, so it’s incredibly disappointing.