Hoeneß: Now I believe we’ll win the league

Bayern are on a winning streak and now stand on the verge of a 21st German championship triumph. Three days after a gala 5-0 victory over Borussia Dortmund, the men from Munich came from behind to beat Eintracht Frankfurt 3-1 and maintain their ten-point lead at the top of the Bundesliga. “The game was full of incident and I do believe Frankfurt were just as entitled to win it as us,“ Ottmar Hitzfeld frankly admitted afterwards. With just five games to go this term, even ultra-cautious general manager Uli Hoeneß is convinced: “Now, I’m prepared to say this: we’ll be German champions.“

Reaction to Eintracht Frankfurt v Bayern:

Uli Hoeneß: “We’re enjoying a bit of luck at the moment, no question about that, but Frankfurt failed to get a second. But that’s the way it is, when you’re on a roll like we are, you win matches you shouldn’t be winning. Obviously we had it under control by the end, but we could also have lost the game earlier on. Now even I believe we’ll win the league. I don’t really care when it happens, but now, I’m prepared to say this: we’ll be German champions.“

Ottmar Hitzfeld: “We were very lucky today, although Frankfurt were fortunate to take the lead in a phase when we were doing well and applying pressure. We were simply caught on the break, but after that, Frankfurt could easily have made it 2-0. We poured forward again after half-time, and we more or less deserved the equaliser. We were committed to getting a second, we weren’t satisfied with only a point. The game was full of incident and I do believe Frankfurt were just as entitled to win it as us.“

Daniel van Buyten: “We never even contemplated losing the match. A few words were spoken in the dressing room at half-time, and after that we played with more determination, we created more chances, and we scored the goals.”

Friedhelm Funkel (Frankfurt coach): “Compared to our performance in Hanover, I’m not dissatisfied with my team today. We matched Bayern in every area, but it got away from us after we failed to make it 2-0, although Van Buyten clearly committed a foul before equalising. If we’d managed to hold the lead for longer, we might have ended up winning the game. We could have done better today.”

Ioannis Amanatidis (Frankfurt captain): “We were the better team against one of the best clubs in Europe for 60 minutes today, but then we were brutally punished. They’ve hit us twice on the break and gone away with a totally undeserved victory.”

Markus Pröll (Frankfurt keeper): “I think the game turned on us not taking our chances. You know you’re not going to get many chances against Bayern, so you have to put them away when they come along, and that we didn’t do. We’re very, very disappointed, because that was a game we could have won.“