“I cannot believe we are going home”: Rangnick after Austria knocked out by Türkiye

Ralf Rangnick’s Austria side, who impressed by topping their group, are out of EURO2024. Merih Demiral’s brace secured victory for Türkiye in their round of 16 clash.

Demiral opened the scoring in the first minute of the game and added a second in the 59th minute. Michael Gregoritsch pulled one back for Austria with twenty minutes still to go and Christoph Baumgartner came agonisingly close to a stoppage time equaliser, but was denied by an excellent save from Mert Günok.

What did Ralf Rangnick say?

“We didn’t have the necessary luck,” Rangnick concluded after the match. “I believe if the game had gone into extra time then we would’ve had a chance to win the game because I think the Turks were fairly exhausted at the end and we had a physical advantage.

“I cannot believe we are going home today, we thought we were going to continue our journey.

“We had a game against Türkiye [in March] that we won 6-1 and we didn’t have that many chances to score goals. Back then we scored six goals and today we only scored 1 goal, we didn’t score enough.

“I think we started off really strong – after the first goal we had a chance to equalise or even to go into the lead, but then we had difficulty getting the ball and then we changed to a 3-4-3 formation, but we dominated.

“We didn’t make enough of our own chances and we didn’t defend their set pieces well enough.”

In reference to a reporter’s question comparing Günok’s late save to Gordon Banks’ iconic save in the 1970 World Cup, he also added: “We had time to score an equaliser, but it’s difficult when they have Gordon Banks in goal!”

Asked about positive from the tournament, Rangnick said: “I think the four games we played were very entertaining, including today’s game. Not everything went very accurately, we could’ve played a few passes better, but they were four very entertaining games, very intense.

“I’ve seen other games where it was difficult to even stay awake and that was not the case with our games. So now we need to take this with us into the Nations League and then into the World Cup qualification. We definitely want to qualify and if we continue to play the way we have in these four games we have a good chance to qualify for the World Cup.”

He also denied that Demiral’s opener demoralised his side. “Immediately after the 1-0 we had a great chance to score a goal five mins later but we didn’t. I think that we played very well in the first fifteen minutes, that we dominated the game, then after 15-20 mins we didn’t have so much ball possession… but in the second half we dominated the game.

“We had an opponent who played really well and defended really well with three defenders who were really good at headers so it wasn’t so easy for us, but we also had good chances.”

On his message to his squad, he said: “I spoke to them briefly and summarised just what I said here – after such a game, it doesn’t help to say cheer up, or anything. You have to speak less and then tomorrow we will of course discuss everything and then they will go into their holidays.

“Of course the disappointment is the main sentiment but we have the Nations League and then the qualifying for the World Cup. We are in Pot 1 at the moment – that hasn’t happened for years and we want to stay there. We have a good chance to qualify for a World Cup after many years.”

Follow reaction to the round of 16, and every match of the quarterfinals, as our comprehensive coverage of EURO2024 continues.