The winger says talk of the Champions League semi-final made it difficult to concentrate on their last four DFB-Pokal tie on Tuesday night
Bayern Munich starlet Xherdan Shaqiri has admitted that it was tough to focus ahead of their 6-1 win over Wolfsburg due to all the discussion about their upcoming clash with Barcelona.
The Bavarians were drawn against the Blaugrana in the last four of the Champions League last Friday and the first leg is not too far away, on April 23.
Shaqiri, who was given a starting berth and scored the third goal of the game on Tuesday night in the DFB-Pokal semi-final, said after the clash that concentration had not been easy to maintain.
The winger told reporters: “We wanted to reach the cup final but it was difficult for us. All talk about Barcelona had made it hard to concentrate. But we did it and had the game under control.”
Wolfsburg coach Dieter Hecking lamented the heavy loss, which saw Bayern substitute Mario Gomez score a hat-trick in six minutes, late on, after Mario Manduzkic’s opener, Arjen Robben’s second and Shaqiri’s third.
“For 65 minutes, it was a very good game from us but then they came at us hard,” he said.
“It should not have happened that we conceded six times with such a performance, – it was two or three goals too much. This cannot be explained. But we have big plans and getting to the semi-final has still been a great success.”
The visitors pulled a goal back just before half-time to bring the score to 2-1 at the break, but they were unable to capitalise on Bayern’s moment of weakness which frustrated Brazilian defender Naldo, who praised his team-mate’s performances and bemoaned the slanted scoreline.
“We played very well. We tried to get a result, but the final score is too high – the game did not deserve to finish 6-1.”