Augsburg pleased with defensive display despite 3-0 defeat

Despite going down 3-0 to Bayern Munich on Friday night, Augsburg players and coach Jess Thorup were proud of their defensive display.

FC Augsburg went down 3-0 to Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga on Friday night at the Allianz Arena.

But although Bayern dominated possession and shots, they created few clear-cut chances until Harry Kane opened the scoring from the penalty spot just after the hour mark.

And it wasn’t until stoppage time that he added a second from the spot before completing his hat-trick after Keven Schlotterbeck was sent off for the visitors.

After the game, Augsburg’s players and coach Jess Thorup were pleased with their defensive performance, but admitted that they should have done better in possession.

“We defended well, apart from the two penalties. They did have a lot of shots on goal, but they didn’t really cause any danger in the first half. Our compactness made it difficult for them. It was really disappointing to be 2-0 down from two penalties,” said Augsburg captain Jeffrey Gouweleeuw. 

“The positive thing is that we can defend with discipline, even against Bayern. Although it’ll be a completely different game next week, we still need to improve on the ball.”

Mads Pedersen, whose handball led to the first penalty, commented:

“We held out for a long time, and it’s frustrating that we didn’t get our reward for all that hard defensive work. It was disappointing that Bayern took the lead from a penalty for handball against me, but sadly it hit my hand. I couldn’t get it out of the way. We have to keep working over the coming games and improve going forward so we can start picking up points again.”

Augsburg coach Jess Thorup said he believes his team have “improved a lot defensively over the last few weeks”.

“We did really well and left very little space in the first half. We would have hoped to create more chances ourselves, but the opponents pressed well and made it difficult for us.

“At the end of the day, we conceded two penalties and deserved to lose. There was an opportunity to get a draw today, but we didn’t take advantage of our counterattacking situations. That’s why Bayern deserved to win,” said Thorup.