Can: Dortmund 'extremely bitter' after DFB-Pokal exit
Bayer Leverkusen avenged their Bundesliga defeat to Borussia Dortmund by knocking them out of the DFB-Pokal on Tuesday.
Emre Can says he feels "extremely bitter" about Borussia Dortmund's DFB-Pokal exit to Bayer Leverkusen.
Three days after Dortmund beat Leverkusen in the Bundesliga, Ibrahim Maza's goal was enough to seal Kasper Hjulmand's side a 1-0 win and book their place in the quarter-finals.
Leverkusen also had a second goal disallowed, while Dortmund felt they should have had a first-half penalty before Maza opened the scoring, but the referee played on after Carney Chukwuemeka went down in the box under pressure from Jarell Quansah.
Since they won the trophy in 2020-21, Dortmund have only made it past the round of 16 once, but having had 20 shots to Leverkusen's six on Tuesday, they felt they should have done better.
"We played a decent game, created a few scoring chances, but didn't do that," Can said. "And that's extremely bitter because it was a knockout game.
"In the end, perhaps the last greed was missing. You can't do better this season. We had set ourselves a lot of goals, and unfortunately, we are eliminated here.
"We wanted to be brave, wanted to be up front; man against man, if necessary, against the ball. Especially in this competition, we wanted to go extremely far, but unfortunately, we didn't make it – extremely bitter.
"We'll keep going, we'll step on the gas in the Bundesliga, also in the Champions League. We still have a long season ahead of us."
Leverkusen, meanwhile, reached the quarter-finals of the competition for the third consecutive season, matching the club's record (previously done in 1992-1994 and 2014-2016).
They have also now scored in each of their last 40 DFB-Pokal matches, another record for the club and the longest current run of any team.
Leverkusen defended well and were clinical at the other end, scoring with one of only two shots on target, and Hjulmand praised the discipline his side showed.
"We played out very well from the back, scored a great goal and then defended very well," Hjulmand said. "We're through to the next round and very happy.
"We're on the right track, but we're only at the beginning. We can still play much better. We will continue to work hard."
