Kovac ‘sad’ to see ‘dominant’ Bayern lose Supercup to Dortmund

Bayern Munich head coach Niko Kovac lamented his team’s mistakes and wastefulness in their DFL-Supercup defeat to Borussia Dortmund, though he was not dissatisfied with the performance. 

Dortmund claimed the DFL-Supercup with a 2-0 win on Saturday, Paco Alcacer and Jadon Sancho preventing Bayern from winning the German season’s curtain-raiser for a fourth consecutive year. 

Thiago Alcantara gifted possession to Sancho, who set up Alcacer for the 48th-minute opener, before the England international scored a goal of his own with 21 minutes remaining. 

Reflecting on the result, which saw Kingsley Coman denied twice, Kovac told reporters: “Of course, we’re sad we lost the match today. I think we turned in a decent display, not a very good one, but decent. 

“We were dominant, we made two mistakes Dortmund capitalised on. We failed to take our chances, which is why we lost the match. 

“We’re in the fourth week of pre-season. It was the first match where everyone played 90 minutes, you can’t expect more in this situation. I’m not dissatisfied, of course it wasn’t an outstanding performance. 

“We must take our chances and not play into Dortmund’s hands, losing the ball and allowing counters.” 

Dortmund looked the brighter and more imaginative of the two sides for much of the clash and coach Lucien Favre – whose team finished two points adrift of Bayern in the Bundesliga last season – said: “We absolutely wanted to win this match. 

“Bayern were very strong and had a lot of possession; 65 per cent I think, that’s a lot. Nonetheless, we created clear goalscoring chances and defended patiently and very compactly. We performed very, very well.” 

“If things continue like that until the end of the season, I’ll take it,” Dortmund’s Marco Reus added. “It was a good start today. It goes without saying that the match is not a real benchmark for the season. But it was still a spectacular game, we were more effective today and deserved to get the victory too.”