Michael Ballack disappointed with Bayer Leverkusen’s loss to Valencia- UCL News
Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Michael Ballack has expressed disappointment over his team’s 3-1 loss to Valencia in the UEFA Champions League. Ballack also commented on his team’s missed chances which has given Valencia, a renewed hope, of qualifying into the
next round.
The midfielder was part of Robin Dutt’s starting XI for Tuesday’s game at Mestella. Ballack played the whole 90 minutes but failed to inspire his side to a win that could have earned them a top spot in Group E.
Jonas, Roberto Soldado and Adil Rami scored goals for the hosts. Stefan KieBling netted a solitary goal for the visitors.
Ballack told that his team were put under early pressure and got off to the worst possible start. He refrained from blaming his young goalkeeper, Bernd Leno, whose mistake led to Valencia’s opener as early in the 11th second.
The veteran German thought that Leno was unlucky to have conceded such silly goal and is not the one to be blamed for Bayer’s defeat. Ballack stated that his team made a decent comeback by equalising in the 31st minute but it all went wrong during
the second 45 minutes.
Michael, at the same time, praised his players on putting up a brave show away from home and is confident of booking berth in the round-of-16. The midfielder urged his teammates not to repeat the mistakes in the upcoming games and try achieving maximum points
from the remaining two group games.
While talking to reporters after Tuesday’s 3-1 loss, the former Chelsea man enthused, “It is very frustrating that we did not win. The game could not have started worse for us, conceding a goal in the first minute, but we came back, we recovered very quickly.
We created a few chances and we were good — good enough to equalise.”
He concluded by saying, “It seemed to me we had the game under control but in the middle of the second half they scored another which never should happen from this position.
Even then we came back. To lose 3-1 is very disappointing — we deserved much more.
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The Werkself are currently second in their group behind Chelsea and will next be in action against Hamburger SV on their return to Bundesliga action.