Peter Stoger Slams Borussia Dortmund for Showing 'No Courage' in Der Klassiker Defeat

Peter Stöger claimed Borussia Dortmund could have taken their DFB-Pokal match with Bayern Munich to extra-time if die Schwarzgelben had "more luck" on their side in the closing stages of the match on Wednesday.

Goals from Jérôme Boateng and Thomas Müller proved to be too much for Dortmund to come back from, despite Andriy Yarmolenko's late header promising a dramatic comeback. Alexander Isak had a late opportunity to take the game to extra-time but the 18-year-old's clever shot trickled agonisingly wide of Sven Ulreich's goal.

"I think it was a deserved victory for Bayern," Stöger admitted after the game, as quoted by the Bayern Munich website.

"We hardly put into practice what we had planned, especially in the first half. Little passion, very bad accuracy, bad tackles and no courage. The second half was considerably better, we got a grip on the match then. 

"I saw a reaction, which was important for us. With a little more luck we could have taken it into extra-time with the last chance. But taken altogether it was a deserved defeat."

Dortmund's captain, Marcel Schmelzer, also spoke to the media after the final whistle had blown, describing an unsatisfactory first-half performance as BVB's eventual downfall. 

"In the first half, we got off lightly going two down. That's completely unacceptable. We showed a reaction after the break."