Following the 2-1 defeat to the USA in the friendly ahead of the European Championship qualifier against Gibraltar on Saturday (20:45 CEST), Joachim Löw had words of praise for the strong first half, but criticism for his side’s performance after the break. DFB.de have collected all the post-match quotes.
Joachim Löw: I’m very, very happy with the first half. At some point in the game though we lost our way and could no longer react properly. The USA were snappy and were better than us.
Mario Götze: If we score the goals early, it’s a different story. It was unfavourable for us. We need to play better football on Saturday, then we will avoid a scrap.
Jürgen Klinsmann (USA manager): It was an entertaining game with a good end for us. My players were really happy in the changing room. The way things went in the second half, we fully deserved the win. This success will bring even more attention to American soccer.
Bastian Schweinsteiger: Tonight’s game was very important to help us get back into the rhythm. Obviously we wanted to win, but you also need to look at where the Americans have come from and where we have, from a fitness perspective. From that I’m sure we will put on a great game against Gibraltar.
Patrick Herrmann: I’m so happy that I managed to play my first game today. You always take things from experiences like this, especially in your first game. Things didn’t go as well as we would have wanted in the second half.
Ron-Robert Zieler: It’s really annoying to concede a goal so close to the end. We should have upped the tempo a little. I think we played well in the first half, but not in the second. We expected things to be completely different.