Klopp takes the blame for 0-1 loss to Greece: “My responsibility, we must get better”

Greece stunned Europe on Sunday evening, September 27, beating Germany 1-0 for the first time in history thanks to Dimitris Kourbelis’s goal in the 74th minute, as ProtoThema reports. With a second straight win in Nations League A, the Greeks stand alone atop Group 2 with 6 points.

According to ProtoThema’s reporting, the defeat spoiled coach Jürgen Klopp’s home debut in charge of Germany, and after the match he took the responsibility upon himself. “With all the changes I made, the defeat is naturally my responsibility. It was clear we weren’t going to win this match by a large margin against an opponent defending so deep — but we shouldn’t have lost a match like this,” the German coach declared at the press conference.

Klopp, as ProtoThema conveys, stressed that his team failed to execute the game plan: “We didn’t manage to implement our plan today. Football needs training, football needs automatisms. We don’t have enough of them yet. We’re a team that was just created and we keep showing moments when we understand each other well — but the opposite can happen too, as we saw today.”

Despite the defeat, the coach stayed focused on the big picture. “I’ve lost many more matches in my life than I would have liked. I can handle it. After matches like this, you just have to draw conclusions and get better,” Klopp said, adding that he “prefers a bad start to a bad ending.”

The 0-1 defeat at Augsburg’s WWK Arena marks Klopp’s first loss in charge of the German national team, while Greece continues its perfect run in the group and moves closer to qualifying for the next stage of the Nations League.