Neuer hails return of "winning mentality" while Holtby and Becker reflect on rough evening
Legendary German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer spoke of a new dawn for the FCB while Kiel professionals Lewis Holtby and Timo Becker could only lament their mistakes.
FC Bayern München's 6-1 Saturday evening massacre of Holstein Kiel left recently retired German national team keeper Manuel Neuer in an optimistic mood about his club team bouncing back from their first trophy-less year in well over a decade. The 38-year-old didn't seem troubled by the fact that he wasn't able to keep a clean sheet at the end of the evening. For the veteran back-stop, all that mattered was that the record champs had won all four of their competitive fixtures in the current cycle.
“We were present from the start," Neuer told his Sky Germany interviewer, referencing the obvious fact that Jamal Musiala scored inside of 15 seconds, "We controlled the game from the onset and played with dynamism. We showed everything we set out to do on the pitch. We have the winning mentality back, we have a small series [of consecutive wins]."
The mood in the Kiel camp was obviously a different story. Two Holstein actors with top flight experience could hardly stand to talk about the result. Captain Lewis Holtby - no stranger to top flight football at all - had to admit that his blackout passing error effectively cost his team the match. Former FC Schalke 04 defender Timo Becker - who has 33 Bundesliga appearances under his belt - completely lost it.
“After a few seconds and my mistake before the 0-2, it was clear to me that it would be a long evening," Holtby remarked in his interview, "But we can't talk ourselves down now, otherwise it'll be a nasty week until Bochum. We have to learn from these first few games and from this game.”
Becker wasn't as sanguine.
"That was just bad and inexplicable," the 27-year-old railed, "We went out and shit ourselves. I'm really angry."