Borussia Dortmund captain Emre Can launched an angry tirade against his teammates after his side were thrashed 4-0 by Barcelona in their Champions League quarterfinal first leg on Wednesday.
Can was visibly frustrated after the match and told DAZN that it was a matter of attitude, rather than tactics or coaching decisions, that led to the defeat.
“It’s not a question of system but rather of whether everyone is willing to give 100% and make the sacrifices required in games like this,” Can said.
“Too many things went wrong in the game, we didn’t play well today. We were soft. We weren’t cohesive enough. And on top of that, we made simple mistakes.
“At this level, those types of mistakes are punished harshly. That’s why we went down here today.
“We were playing against a great Barcelona team, they obviously have several good players, definitely, so the only way you can beat them is if you go out there as a team, something we didn’t do,” Can said.
“I think we could have done much better, even though they’re so good, I know that. You have to go for it and we didn’t, to be honest.
“Now we need to put in a good performance [in the second leg] and try to win the game. We owe it to our fans and we need to give it everything we’ve got.”
Dortmund manager Niko Kovac was similarly critical of his side’s performance.
“Deserved losers today,” he told a news conference. “At this level we made too many errors which Barça took advantage of with their quality. Had problems in first 20 minutes, then we conceded a goal after a foul we should not have given away.
“What annoys me is we invited them to counterattack by losing the ball. It’s going to be really difficult in the second leg, as you know.
“I said in the meeting with the team: If you let Barça play, with the players they have, without resistance … you have problems. We know they have great quality. We didn’t do what we needed to do.”
Treble-chasing Barça will be full of confidence for Tuesday’s return leg in Germany against struggling Dortmund who are eighth in the Bundesliga standings on 41 points, five from the qualification spots for next season’s Champions League.
Information from Reuters and ESPN’s Sam Marsden contributed to this report.
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