The dress rehearsal for the Champions League start went so badly for RB Leipzig against Eintracht Frankfurt that the anticipation of the premier class is gone for now. The frustration is so deep that coach Domenico Tedesco attacks his own team hard.
After RB Leipzig's bitter 4-0 defeat in the Bundesliga away game at Eintracht Frankfurt, coach Domenico Tedesco is not looking forward to the top flight. "You can only enjoy the Champions League when things are going well in the league," said the 36-year-old, looking ahead to the group stage opener against Shakhtar Donetsk next Tuesday. "I think that's a shame, because we worked hard for it."
With just five points from five games, Leipzig, who put in a disappointing performance in Frankfurt, are only eleventh after five Bundesliga matchdays. "This game was deservedly lost, well deserved," said Tedesco on Sky and settled accounts with his team: "We can talk about lost points in Stuttgart or at Union Berlin, where there were good phases. But today … that was nothing, we completely missed the basics. We weren't even on the pitch in the first round. To be honest, we weren't aggressive at all."
Tedesco could have left it at this critical lightning analysis, but the coach obviously had a lot of frustration about his own squad - and he had to get out after this frustrating Saturday evening: "We lost the balls so quickly. Of course Frankfurt did well too , but we were terrible," he added - and expressed fundamental doubts: "If you play three systems and nothing changes, then that's just because of the mentality, because of the basics," said Tedesco mercilessly.
Leipzig's top-class offensive with newcomer Timo Werner, the footballer of the year Christopher Nkunku and Emil Forsberg, who was brought in early, had hardly been able to stage anything productive for almost the entire season.
Forsberg, who should have brought fresh structure and new, dangerous ideas into the Leipzig game, but failed almost completely, went sack and ashes after the sobering game: "To win here, you also have to win duels. You have to play quickly and intensely, but that was too bad of us, everything was bad," said the Swede. "That's not what we're aiming for, I don't think we've won a single duel. And we deserved to lose. We have to understand what we have to do."
It is now important to quickly work through and tick off the game in Frankfurt. "We are professionals and have to do it. There is no alternative to that," said Tedesco. "We're definitely playing the Champions League - we can't postpone it."
(This article was first published on Sunday, September 04, 2022.)
