The 22-year-old stopper has acknowledged his side’s impressive performance in the UEFA Champions League opener against the Bundesliga champions, while expressing his disappointment over losing the game.
Ajax Amsterdam suffered a 1-0 loss at the hands of Borussia Dortmund in their UEFA Champions League group stage opener at Signal Iduna Park on Tuesday, September 18.
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Daley-Blind-c9747, the Amsterdammers left-back, has expressed his disappointment over losing the game, but has also acknowledged that his side staged an impressive show against the German champions.
“It's very disappointing to concede such a late goal, but I think we can be proud of our team. We had a lot of possession and we created chances too. I think we did well”, the 22-year-old stopper was quoted as saying to the media.
Both sides started the game cautiously, and failed to break the deadlock in the first-half. The German side resumed action in the second-half as a better unit, and managed to threaten the visiting side’s defence with couple of
decent opportunities.
The hosts had a golden opportunity to grab the lead in the 58th minute, when http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ricardo-c30950 van Rhijn brought down Mario Gotze inside the penalty area, and the referee had no other option but to point towards the spot.
However, De Joden goalkeeper, Kenneth Vermeer, made an impressive diving save to deny http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Mats-Hummels-c24767 from hitting the back of the net on the resulting spot-kick.
The Amsterdammers were brimming with confidence to secure a good result after restricting Die Borussians from taking the lead, but http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Robert-Lewandowski-c31255 managed to pour water on the visitors’ hopes with a late winner.
Blind admitted that everyone expected a good result after Vermeer saved the penalty, and revealed that conceding a goal in the final moments of the game was extremely frustrating.
“From that moment [when http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Kenneth-Vermeer-c20618 saved Hummels' second-half penalty] everyone felt we had a chance. We fought until the final seconds, so it was very frustrating to concede as we did”, the young full-back added.
Ajax have been drawn in the Group D of the competition alongside Real Madrid, Manchester City and the German champions, and the 22-year-old stopper admitted that his side is drawn in the toughest group of the tournament.
“It's a very difficult group. We just have to play our games in the way we want to play. If we do that, we can make it difficult for any team”, Blind concluded.
The Amsterdammers will play their next Champions League game against Real Madrid at Amsterdam Arena on October 3.
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