Julian Schuster reflects on 'painful' UEFA Europa League final loss to Aston Villa
Freiburg head coach Julian Schuster says it'll take time to get over defeat to Aston Villa in the 2025/26 UEFA Europa League final.
Freiburg went down 3-0 to the English Premier League side in Istanbul, bringing an end to an unforgettable European campaign. Read on for match reaction after Die Breisgauer came up short in their pursuit of a first major trophy...
Julian Schuster (head coach): "Right now, there is no happiness. We lost a final. That hurts. I said before the game, we came into this believing we could win. For 40 minutes we did well, and then it changed. For the first goal, Villa worked the set-piece well, for the second it was our error. When you are 2-0 down at the break, you see the real face of a team, and the boys did well. It didn't go our way in the end, and in a few days we will appreciate what we achieved with our fans, but it's painful right now."
Vincenzo Grifo (midfielder): "We have to say that Villa were better, and we weren't able to impose ourselves on them. When I see what the fans and we did this season and what we achieved... a lot of us played over 50 games, and we wanted to lift the trophy but it wasn't to be. The fans brought us here, and they were there for us in bad times. You play football for these moments, but we drew the short straw today."
Noah Atubolu (goalkeeper): "We got off to a good start, but then we made things unnecessarily difficult for ourselves within a matter of minutes. Those were far too easy goals to concede; up until then, we’d actually defended very well. We can be proud of how far we've come. At the same time, though, we're also disappointed today. Huge respect to all the fans who were here supporting us today. The atmosphere was excellent – it certainly wasn't down to them."
Aston Villa
Ollie Watkins (forward): "I've watched many finals and I think set-pieces are crucial. Until then it was a bit cagey, they were going man for man. Fair play to [set-piece coach] Austin MacPhee for having the courage, we left four up on a corner [...] It's what you dream of."
Ezri Konsa (defender): "To finally bring back some silverware for the club and the fans, it's amazing. It's something I can't really describe. Look what it means to the fans, the players, some of us who've been here for so long. The fans have been with us through thick and thin for us, travelled everywhere. This is for them!"
