Two weeks after seeing his side routed 7-1 at the Olimpico, the Frenchman was full of praise for his troops’ resilience in Bavaria but admitted that their hosts are on another l…
Rudi Garcia has voiced his satisfaction with Roma’s performance in their 2-0 Champions League loss against Bayern Munich, dismissing suggestions that they were afraid of their opponents.
The Serie A side employed a defensive strategy in Wednesday’s encounter at the Allianz Arena in order to avoid a repeat of the 7-1 loss at the Stadio Olimpico two weeks ago, but Pep Guardiola’s side once more proved to be too strong for the Giallorossi.
However, Garcia saw plenty of reasons for optimism in the wake of his side’s defeat and denied that they had merely engaged in an exercise of damage limitation.
“We showed character and pride. Perhaps we could have achieved a better result, but we played against a really good team,” Garcia said at the post-match press conference.
“We prepared two strategies. We tried to achieve a good result – we played without fear, we ran a lot and we did attack quite early with our strikers. Of course we tried to counterattack.
“They created two and a half chances and they scored two goals. We could have created more ourselves – when we had an opportunity they had [Manuel] Neuer, one of the best goalkeepers in the world.”
Garcia then went on to praise Bayern and stated it is impossible to fight for possession at the Allianz Arena due to their efficient pressing.
“Bayern are one of the best teams in the world. We cannot fight for possession against them, it is not possible in Munich. Their pressing is very impressive; sometimes it seems they have an extra man out there.
“We did not give them too much space and they did not create as much as during the first game. I think we can be proud of our team and how we played tonight. We tried to be very compact and wanted to play aggressively.”