Skipper Mats Hummels was the last Dortmund player to walk up and receive his runners-up medal after yesterday’s defeat to Bayern München in the DFB Cup final. The defender came off with an injury after 78 minutes of his final appearance for the club. "It's hugely disappointing," said the 27-year-old afterwards in an interview with DFB.de, in which he also reveals how he had hoped this evening would turn out, the reasons for his substitution and the penalty shoot-out.
Question: Mats Hummels, how do you feel after this narrow defeat in the Cup final?
Mats Hummels: It's hugely disappointing - the defeat and especially the fact that I wasn't able to play the entire game. My body unfortunately thwarted my plans today. Nonetheless we delivered a great fight. We weren’t at our best but despite that we missed a few decent chances from counterattacks. Bayern had chances too though. From my perspective it could've been a perfect farewell but unfortunately it didn't go the way I had hoped it would.
Question: When did you realise that you wouldn't be able to play on anymore and that you needed to be brought off?
Hummels: I didn't indicate that anything was wrong, but I think our coach noticed that I just couldn’t keep playing anymore. I tried to play on. I had cramp in my left leg, but it wasn't a real issue. I must have made a wrong movement, as the cramp suddenly jumped into my calf and I wasn't able to keep going after that. I tried to run it off, to loosen everything up again but with every move it pulled tight again. I think it was noticeable that I was done for the day and the coach reacted to that. I probably would've agreed a few minutes later that I needed to be brought off. I was still trying to get it fixed at that point, but had probably already realised that it was futile.
Question: How would you rate your own performance up until the point when you were forced to be substituted?
Hummels: I think that's irrelevant today. I had good moments and poor ones. It wasn't a perfect game, but rather an average one. I don't have any positive feelings about it. I didn't ever feel that I was having problems in certain areas, but I'm simply disappointed that I wasn't able to play 90 or 120 minutes.
Question: What are your thoughts on the shoot-out? You coach Thomas Tuchel said afterwards that he should've altered the order the players took the penalties in.
Skipper Mats Hummels was the last Dortmund player to walk up and receive his runners-up medal after yesterday’s defeat to Bayern München in the DFB Cup final. The defender came off with an injury after 78 minutes of his final appearance for the club. "It's hugely disappointing," said the 27-year-old afterwards in an interview with DFB.de, in which he also reveals how he had hoped this evening would turn out, the reasons for his substitution and the penalty shoot-out.
Question: Mats Hummels, how do you feel after this narrow defeat in the Cup final?
Mats Hummels: It's hugely disappointing - the defeat and especially the fact that I wasn't able to play the entire game. My body unfortunately thwarted my plans today. Nonetheless we delivered a great fight. We weren’t at our best but despite that we missed a few decent chances from counterattacks. Bayern had chances too though. From my perspective it could've been a perfect farewell but unfortunately it didn't go the way I had hoped it would.
Question: When did you realise that you wouldn't be able to play on anymore and that you needed to be brought off?
Hummels: I didn't indicate that anything was wrong, but I think our coach noticed that I just couldn’t keep playing anymore. I tried to play on. I had cramp in my left leg, but it wasn't a real issue. I must have made a wrong movement, as the cramp suddenly jumped into my calf and I wasn't able to keep going after that. I tried to run it off, to loosen everything up again but with every move it pulled tight again. I think it was noticeable that I was done for the day and the coach reacted to that. I probably would've agreed a few minutes later that I needed to be brought off. I was still trying to get it fixed at that point, but had probably already realised that it was futile.
Question: How would you rate your own performance up until the point when you were forced to be substituted?
Hummels: I think that's irrelevant today. I had good moments and poor ones. It wasn't a perfect game, but rather an average one. I don't have any positive feelings about it. I didn't ever feel that I was having problems in certain areas, but I'm simply disappointed that I wasn't able to play 90 or 120 minutes.
Question: What are your thoughts on the shoot-out? You coach Thomas Tuchel said afterwards that he should've altered the order the players took the penalties in.
Hummels: I don't know. There isn't much you can influence at that point. The lads were tired and it was hard to get people to step up. It was like that for both teams though. It was a tough game at the end of a long season. I've never been someone to criticise a player for missing a penalty. If you have the courage to say "I'm taking one", then it's something that should be praised. It's unfortunate that it was Manni (Sven Bender) and Papa (Sokratis Papastathopoulos) who missed their shots in the end, as they were perhaps the best players on the pitch today. But I also told them, that without them we probably wouldn't have made it to the penalty shoot-out. It happens.
Question: Are you thinking about your departure from Dortmund yet, or are you currently still too disappointed about this defeat?
Hummels: My farewell is definitely on my mind already. It’s been a great time which unfortunately is now coming to an end. I'm certain about one thing though: I wish all of the lads success on a personal level and as a team. My departure doesn’t mean that I’m now against them.
Question: There was a controversial moment in the 38th minute between Gonzalo Castro and Franck Ribery. It looked like your teammate got poked in the eye…
Hummels: We have a clear opinion on that. There was a similar scene in the 2013 Champions League final. In the 2014 Cup final we scored a goal which wasn't given and tonight we had another moment, where I'm not sure if the referee's made the right call. I saw a picture where the fourth official was standing thirty centimetres behind the two players involved. I don't think that anyone inside the stadium missed it. The referee decided that a yellow card was enough. I asked him about it after the game and he said, that he had heard, that he made the right decision. I don't know who told him that. I just told him that we see it differently. It's obviously a shame that once again you have the feeling that an important decision was made against you.
