Sammer resigned to Dortmund exit

By Marcus Christenson

BV Borussia Dortmund coach Matthias Sammer said he was not surprised by the fact that his side had bowed out of this season's UEFA Champions League despite their impressive 1-0 win at Group C winners AC Milan.

No surprises
Real Madrid CF's victory by the same scoreline at FC Lokomotiv Moskva was enough to keep the holders in second place, a point ahead of the 1. Bundesliga side, and move them into the quarter-finals. Sammer said: "This year's Champions League is over for us and we must look forward. We are not surprised that Madrid won in Moscow."

Qualification thrown away
Sammer maintained that Dortmund had thrown away qualification when they allowed Madrid to score a last-minute equaliser at the Westfalenstadion on Matchday 10. He said: "We didn't lose a place in the quarter-finals tonight, we lost that place when we drew against Real Madrid at home."

No belief
Despite having to win at the Giuseppe Meazza stadium, Dortmund were uncharacteristically lacklustre in the first half, leaving Sammer to declare that his players did not believe that qualification was possible. "We talked about it at half-time because I had the feeling that we were not trying to go through to the quarter-finals," he said. "We were much better after the break and we won although maybe we were a little fortunate."

Rare win in Milan
In fact, Rivaldo and Rui Costa both had good chances to put the Serie A side ahead in the first half while Gennaro Gattuso hit the post before Koller finally settled matters in the 80th minute to give Dortmund their first win Milan in 47 years.

No German clubs
The result, however, could not hide the fact that for the first time since the 1956/57 season there will be no clubs from east, west or unified Germany in the latter stages of European competition. Already without a representative in the UEFA Cup quarter-finals, FC Bayern München were eliminated in the first group stage of the Champions League while Bayer 04 Leverkusen have also bowed out of the competition's second group stage.

Not falling behind
Sammer, however, remained adamant that German football was not falling behind the likes of England, Spain and Italy in the European pecking order. He said: "There is no crisis in German football. We do not have a team in the last eight this year but last year it was the same for Italy and now no one here is talking about a crisis. It is just a coincidence and it is only a crisis if the same thing happens for the next five years."

'Lost our way'
Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti claimed he was satisfied with his side's commitment despite their defeat. "We played well for long periods of the game," he said. "We lost our way a bit after their goal but looking at the whole 90 minutes I would say that we deserved more than we got. We played really well for three-quarters of the game."

Unsatisfactory results
However, Ancelotti admitted that recent results, which have seen the Rossoneri fail to win their last five games after three consecutive draws in Serie A and two straight defeats in the Champions League, were less pleasing. He said: "Obviously I am not happy with the run of results and we could have done more in attack today.

'Top of the group'
"We finished top of the group and we are in the quarter-finals, so that's something to be happy about," he added. "I asked the team to speed up their approach play and they did that. We put together some good moves, but unfortunately they came to nothing."