Wasteful Madrid cause Schuster concern
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Article summary
Real Madrid CF may have got Group H under way with a defeat of FC BATE Borisov, yet Bernd Schuster felt they eased off and "wasted a great chance to record a brilliant result" against the debutants from Belarus.
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Bernd Schuster, Madrid coach
Seeing the start we made I expected us to score more goals so I am disappointed, although I'm happy that we took the three points. After our first goal we could see BATE could not react, and we needed to have scored a second and third at that point. As it was we had to start all over again. I didn't like the way we eased off. You should ask the players why they did, not me. I didn't want them to. We wasted a great chance to record a brilliant result which would have thrilled the fans even more. Zenit went down to a narrow loss to Juventus and they'll be eager to face us in the next game. If we can get a good result there then we'll have taken a big step forward in this group.
Viktor Goncharenko, BATE coach
We're a modest team and so this result isn't so bad for us. It was natural that we played worse when we went a man down [after Anri Khagush was sent off on 62 minutes]. I can't say anything negative about Madrid. As for us, we have a young team and hope to make progress gradually. Considering this is the first time we've played in a tournament like the Champions League, tonight doesn't seem that bad to me.