Fürth actors optimistic after loss: "We have proven that we can play football."
After their team showed some courage in front of their hometown fans on Friday night, both coach and players of bottom-of-the-table Greuther Fürth expressed confidence that they could still turn their season around.
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An important aspect of the 1-3 defeat on Friday evening, for the losing side anyway, concerned the fact the SpVgg Greuther Fürth put together some promising spells even after visiting Bayern München scored the decisive third goal. Head-coach Stefan Leitl praised his team afterward in his post-match interview.
"I have to compliment my team sincerely," Leitl told German broadcaster DAZN, "It was another clear improvement in terms of performance. We were brave and executed some good moments of pressing. This was exactly as we had planned."
"The first step came against Wolfsburg [week four], the next against Hertha [week five] and today we took the next against a world-class team," Leitl continued, "You could tell from their lineup that they didn't underestimate us. We have proven that we can play football."
Keeper Sascha Burchert and scorer of an unfortunate own-goal Sebastian Griesbeck also spoke on the DAZN mics afterward.
"We tried to actively influence the game from the start and pose problems for Bayern," Burchert said afterwards, "It's a shame and irritating that the first goal came on a counterattack. It's just difficult against one of the best teams in the world. We then conceded two silly long-range goals because we weren't organized at the back.
Griesbeck, recently brought in from 1. FC Union Berlin, spoke on the unfortunate incident in which he turned the ball into his own net for the 0-3. The goal came some twenty minutes after the hosts received a man-advantage following Benjamin Pavard's straight red.
"It was a set-piece situation in which I had to jostle with Robert Lewandowski," Griesbeck noted, "In the positional struggle, I just tried to get to the ball before him and regrettably tapped it into his own net. That was dumb of course and shouldn't have happened. I should have been in a better position to clear."
"We notice that we're a good team everyday in training," Griesbeck then said in a more optimistic tone, "We have to keep working on getting the points to climb out of this hole. I fully expect us to that. The season is still very young. We will improve from match-to-match. I fully expect us to do that."
The Kleeblätter did give their home supporters something to cheer about in the final minutes. Substitute Timothy Tillman supplied fellow ersatz actor Cedric Itten with a gorgeous cross in the 88th. The newly acquired Swiss forward then supplied a wonderful headed finish.
