MADRID, 23 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Bayer Leverkusen coach, Xabi Alonso, has said that “it will be a test” to see “how” he and his pupils will face the coming days, after having lost the Europa League final this Wednesday by a clear 3-0 against Atalanta BC, at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
“This happens, it’s football. Today was not meant to be, it was not our day and they have been better,” Alonso summarized in the post-match press conference. “We suffered our first defeat of the season, it will be a test to see how we will deal with it because we have another big date on Saturday,” he alluded to the German Cup final.
Thus, he repeated that “we had to create opportunities and in the end today was not our day, we had a bad day.” “It is painful that this happens in an important match, but we have to accept it and that’s it,” insisted the coach of a Bayer Leverkusen team that saw its dream of the treble cut short.
“After the game you have to analyze, maybe something hasn’t been right. You have to think and you want to analyze it better. But yes, there have been many one-on-one situations. Maybe we made too many short passes in the first phase. Maybe we had to go a little further. But it is our way, we do not want to change our style. We have tried to play with our game plan as we always do, but it has not worked and we have had some problems,” admitted Alonso.
“It is very demanding to play against Atalanta, there are many dual situations, very physical. We have not been able to overcome that first pressure and get into good positions. In general, when we had a little advantage, they have been very strong to get back into position, so we have not been able to give the last pass with some space even in the last third of the field,” explained the coach from Tolosa.
“They have been very intense and we were prepared for that, but not from the first minute. Since their goal and even a little before they beat us it has not been a question of attitude, it has been a question of football and that is what I have tried to explain” Alonso stressed.
In this sense, he talked about how his historic streak of consecutive unbeaten games had been broken. “Normally it happens earlier in the season, but this time the first time has been on such an important field… Of course it hurts, but we have to deal with this pain in a positive way, try to transform it into good energy for the next thing” , he commented on the matter.
“This is football and the normal thing is not to lose in the 52nd game, it normally happens much earlier during the season, so what we have achieved has been quite exceptional. We have to be very proud, we probably need some time, well for sure that today will be painful, but it is also worth it,” said the Basque coach.
“I’m sure I’ll learn. Everyone and I too, I know I’ll learn because defeats in the finals are not forgotten. We had a great opportunity, we had to put everything in today but it didn’t go as planned. We haven’t been at our best level, everyone , including myself, so we will learn starting today,” he predicted.
“It’s going to be a challenge for us how to recover from today’s defeat and how to deal with the pain. I think it will be a good preparation or a good challenge for us to return to a final. We had a great opportunity, but we didn’t We have failed and we have not done our best to try,” he concluded at the press conference.