“We were too naive”

“It was not enough from the start,” said defender Marvin Potzmann. “In the end we were too naive.” It was by no means Slavia Prague’s best line-up that made LASK look bad 4-1 in the round of 16 first leg. Roughly sharing playing time on the wing, 16-year-old twins Adam and Milos Pudil made their debuts – because Slavia coach Jindrich Trpisovsky knew their speed would hurt athletes.

LASK only ran after them, but thanks to Husein Balic’s 1:2, they still had the chance of a good starting position for the second leg on Thursday in St. Pölten (9 p.m.). “I could have lived well with a 1-2 draw,” said coach Andreas Wieland, whose team was “too greedy to equalize” after the goal. When asked about the chance in St. Pölten, he paused meaningfully: “The fact that it ended up being 4-1 makes the situation for the second leg… difficult.”