Schalke 04 striker http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Gonzalez-c15099 believes his side can still progress to the Champions League final
Schalke 04 striker, Raul Gonzalez, remains confident of his side’s chances to progress to the UEFA Champions League final despite suffering a 2-0 defeat at the hands of English Premier League leaders, Manchester United.
The German team hosted the Red Devils in the first leg of semi-final at Gelsenkirchen. Goals from http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ryan-Giggs-c31985 have put the visitors in ascendency ahead of the second leg at Old Trafford on 4th May, 2011.
The Germans were expected to give the Red Devils a tough time after their emphatic 7-3 aggregate win over defending Champions http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Inter-c39567 Milan in the quarter-final, however, the Germans failed to trouble United goalkeeper Van der Sar as they were kept at bay by an efficient United defence.
In spite of the defeat, there were some positives for the Germans though, as goalkeeper http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Manuel-Neuer-c23424 put in a fantastic display for his side and thanks to his heroics Schalke were able to prevent the match from turning into a riot.
Raul admitted that conceding two away goals is disappointing, though, the former Real Madrid man claims that his team is still not out of the tie and will be looking to overturn the deficit when the two sides meet in the second leg.
He said, "In the return leg, everything is possible. We do not know what will happen, a penalty to us, a sending off to them. Nothing is impossible in football."
Furthermore, the Spaniard pointed out that his side did not create enough goal scoring chances and admitted they were certainly beaten by the better team on the night.
He added, "The only regrets we have are that we did not create enough scoring chances and that we conceded two goals in two minutes. We expected a different result, another outcome to the game but we are still happy because we played to our level. The problem was that Manchester [United] played at another level."
Not given much of a chance by many, German underdogs can certainly be proud of their accomplishment as they are able to reach the last four of Europe’s elite club competition.
At present Schalke are 10th in the German Bundesliga and unless they can pull a rabbit out of a hat by beating United by a three goal margin in the second leg, the participation in the Champions League final seems unlikely.
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