Lanig lauds Eintracht's intrepid fans

Eintracht Frankfurt goalscorer Martin Lanig reserved a special mention for the 12,000 travelling supporters who gave his side "more power to play" after the visitors sealed first place in Group F with a 1-0 triumph at FC Girondins de Bordeaux.

The Bundesliga outfit were spurred on by a record away contingent in a UEFA Europa League group game and took the lead through substitute Lanig on 83 minutes. The result also confirmed Bordeaux's elimination, and midfielder Ludovic Obraniak commented: "We weren't up to the task in the competition this year."

Martin Lanig, Eintracht midfielder
We're very happy. It was a tough game for us, but the support of the fans was very good. It was amazing for the team to play with these fans. We went for a walk today in the afternoon and we saw a lot of fans from Frankfurt, and that gave us more power to play. We saw them celebrating and felt that they were behind us. Scoring in front of them was a bit like scoring at home. I saw the fans screaming, so I had to go to them.

It was important for us to stay in the Europa League. We'll have to see who we get in the next round, but we can go very far. There are many good teams [left] and we're looking forward to playing in the Europa League again.

Tranquillo Barnetta, Eintracht midfielder
We didn't play very well today, but recently we've played well in games and ended up losing. To get a win like this will give us confidence for our next games. Today we scored at the end, whereas we've tended to concede goals at the end. I can't explain what our problem has been [in the Bundesliga], but this gives us belief.

It was incredible. This was the first time 12,000 fans have travelled with a team to a game like this. Unfortunately we couldn't give them much back in the game, but in the end we got the three points and everyone is happy.

Our main goal was to get out of the group and we've managed that. Now we're looking ahead and we have to get back to the league, where we have difficult games to come. We'll try to get points and after that, in the Europa League, we'll look to go even further.

Ludovic Obraniak, Bordeaux midfielder
In the first half we lacked a spark going forward, but in the second we had all the ingredients right and only just missed out on scoring ourselves. We had two or three chances that we should have put away. Our team is quite fragile at the moment, so when you don't score you always risk conceding – and that's what happened again tonight. Because we were trying to get forward, we got hit on the break. We need more of a killer instinct.

Given how we started in the competition, we got ourselves in trouble early on. Tonight we needed to beat the group leaders and we weren't able to do it at home, just as we weren't able to beat Maccabi [Tel-Aviv] at home. If you're not capable of winning home games in the group stage, you have no place in the knockout rounds.

Eintracht deserved to qualify because they were better than us over the two games and we weren't able to shine against the other two teams in the group. We weren't up to the task in the competition this year. When you look at the draw we had, it was tougher than last season, but we should have got out of this group.

We'll have to concentrate on the league. We're out of Europe, so we'll have no more excuses after our weekend games. We'll try to have a run in the cups like last year.

Henri Saivet, Bordeaux forward
We're out and we lost, so we're very disappointed. We really had a chance to do something. It was important to win because we would have had a mini-final in Tel Aviv. We ran a lot, we tried a lot of things, we did what we could to score, but the goalkeeper made two or three saves. We never gave up. Everyone gave their all and tried to do what they could to win the match.

At the moment, we have trouble finding the net. We'll work even harder at that. Last season we put these kind of chances away, but this season we're less effective. Perhaps in a couple of days we'll say there could be a silver lining to going out, because it will leave us more energy for the league.