Dortmund boss Terzic reacts after ‘exhausting’ win over Milan: 'We wanted it more'

Borussia Dortmund head coach Edin Terzic has outlined the key aspects of why his side were able to obtain such an impressive result at San Siro against AC Milan.

Milan’s hopes of reaching the Champions League knockout stages were all but ended on Tuesday night at San Siro as they lost 3-1 to Dortmund. Olivier Giroud missed an early penalty and Marco Reus scored one which set the tone for the game ultimately.

Samuel Chukwueze got his first goal since signing for Milan to make it 1-1 going into the break but Malick Thiaw went off injured which meant Rade Krunic came on at centre-back. Jamie Bynoe-Gittens put the away side 2-1 up and then Karim Adeyemi scored 10 minutes later to seal the deal.

Terzic spoke at his post-match press conference at San Siro after having qualified for the Champions League round of 16 with a win, and his comments were relayed by MilanNews.

How important is qualification?

“The boys were exhausted, but they are very happy, satisfied with this qualification. We all remember the evening of the draw when we were talking about this group of death, when they told us that we had no chance after the defeat in the first match against PSG and the draw at home with Milan. Milan also needed to win today, but we wanted it more.”

Did the team play with less pressure because they weren’t favourites like in the Bundesliga?

“We don’t want to make any distinction between competitions and competitions and between opponents and opponents. We must learn from this victory. Every 30 minutes the team doctor came to tell me that someone couldn’t play: they all worked hard for the victory.”

Will you still have motivation for the match against PSG?

“They started well, all the matches were very close in this group. Milan had the game under control for large periods, but we were always dangerous. We want to improve to be more incisive in certain situations, perhaps scoring earlier.

“We don’t want to make any distinction between the various matches: we will play to win, we don’t want to give anything away to PSG, Newcastle and Milan. 80,000 will come to the stadium and we can go first: so we will give everything. I’m always very motivated.”

What was the tactical key?

“We can talk endlessly about tactics, but we entered with the right mentality. They pushed on the wingers who targeted the defenders and we kept the full-backs and centre-backs low.”

Hummels had a great game…

“Very important. He has enormous quality and enormous experience: he has already seen everything there is to see in football. After a match in the 90s Koler was defined as the god of football: in my opinion Koler played worse than Hummels today.”