FRANCE 98 – Germany-Yugoslavia – B. Vogts: “We went from the impossible to the possible”

“I think that during the last twenty-five minutes of the match, we could have turned defeat into victory. For sixty or sixty-five minutes, I was very angry with my players’ perfomance. You would think that some of them didn’t realise that they were playing in a World Cup match. We allowed the Yugoslavs to play their own game, and they were therefore able to exploit the room we gave them.

After the introduction of new players and the rearrangement of the side’s positioning, we went from the impossible to the possible. This also shows that we are at our physical peak, capable of playing for ninety minutes.

I think that the Yugoslav team should be congratulated on playing fantastic football; but they wanted us to believe that they were capable of scoring a third goal, and they were punished for that… The main problem that we created for the Yugoslavs was in the midfield, which we reinforced with Lothar MATTHÄUS (8) and Michael TARNAT (21). Keeping up the pressure on each player’s opposite number was more effective, all the more so with the entry into the game of Ulf KIRSTEN (9) which put enormous pressure on the opposition defence.

Our goal is very clear: we want to qualify for the second round, but we also want to finish first in the group. We will do what we must to achieve this. We will start preparing again tomorrow. I have no explanation for the clumsiness of our attackers, although there could be several reasons for it: the fast pace of our opponents’ game in the first half, a lapse in concentration, the heat, and the lack of space”.