Eliminated Austria rue lack of edge
Monday, June 16, 2008
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Austria team manager Andreas Herzog said the lack of an attacking threat had cost the co-hosts dear after Michael Ballack's fine free-kick curtailed their campaign.
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Andreas Herzog, Austria team manager
We've never had a situation like this before. The match was a bit strange, it was a normal game from the start but the second half wasn't easy for us or for Germany – the coaches were gone and this caused some unrest. We challenged Germany but unfortunately we weren't as dangerous as we'd have liked to be. We have a very young squad, they're all disappointed in the dressing room of course, but we've worked hard for the last two years and have been able to show that people can play good football in Austria.
Hansi Frick, Germany assistant coach
We knew the match would be very difficult. But I'm very happy with the performance – we wanted to get to the quarter-finals and we've done that. We showed the right attitude from the first to the last minute, we fought hard and that was the focus. We wanted to show a different attitude from the game against Croatia and we managed to do that, although we recognise we have a lot of things to work on.
We were very satisfied overall. Our defence was very well positioned and there were a number of situations they handled well. In attack, we have to run more and have to be quicker – after we'd scored there were occasions when we could have benefited from quick breaks. There were chances where we could have scored on the break, so we need to work on that. Portugal obviously have outstanding individuals and during the first three matches they've played really well as a team. We have less time to recover and Portugal were able to rest some of their players [against Switzerland last night], so perhaps they have us at a disadvantage in terms of physical fitness. But I think our attitude will make up for that.