"A very poor second half"

Domenico Tedesco:

Congratulations to Hertha. We are naturally very disappointed. We gave our all and were really up for it pre-match, but that wasn’t enough to win the match. Ultimately our second half performance was enough to condemn us to a defeat. We only managed to put pressure on Hertha’s goal in the final quarter of an hour.

The first half wasn’t too bad, although we struggled in the centre of the park as they marked us man-to-man. We therefore tried to attack them down the wings, which worked well down the left with Yehven Konoplyanka. I feel that we also lacked a little a bit of purposefulness going forward and also lost the ball on too many occasions. We now know what we are good and not good at. The things which we are good at we will carry doing well, and those things which didn’t work today won’t be tried again in the future. I take full responsibility for the mistakes made today. In the next few weeks we will work on our attacking game, so that our strikers are not so isolated anymore.

Pal Dardai:

It was a massive performance from the whole team today. It was difficult for us to prepare for Schalke ahead of the game, but my lads did very well. It felt like we hadn’t won at Schalke for 100 years, which makes it so special for our fans today. I don’t believe that our victory was undeserved, as we could have scored again from one of our counter attacks in the second half. As we didn’t, it was still close in added time and thankfully Rune Jarstein saved the day for us. I’m also really pleased for Ondrej Duda after he scored twice today.

Ralf Fährmann:

We were in Hertha’s half for almost all of the game. They had one chance on the counter, it was deflected and they then had the lead, which was really frustrating for us. We don’t seem to have any luck at the moment; we’ll have to find it ourselves. I don’t believe we deserved to lose the first two games of the season, but unfortunately we have, which means we’ll have to find a way out of this situation. I even said last season that we will face some difficult times and we will have to come out of them crisis stronger. I’m certain that we will be able to do this as well. A lot of the squad will go off to play for their national sides, which will hopefully clear their heads. I will remain here, give my all and carry on working hard.

Sebastian Rudy:

I had hoped that the three points would remain here today, unfortunately that wasn’t the case. I believe that we were the better team in the game, but Hertha punished a moment of carelessness from us and then sat back and played on the counter. It was then difficult for us to create chances and to bring our attackers into the game. Overall I don’t think we played awfully, we just need to change one or two aspects and things will soon be looking up.