Thomas Tuchel is very much looking forward to tomorrow evening. “Return leg in the knock-out phase, the floodlights are on and everyone is ready to support us. We need to dig in and score goals.” And in doing so, celebrate getting into the last eight of the best teams in Europe.

The starting point for the team is well known, has been spoken about a thousand times over as well as spoken about in the team sessions. “It’s a tricky situation. Even if we had won the first leg we would need to forget about the result and deliver a good performance. We need four top half-times to get through it” said Tuchel and added: “we have to attack with a real desire, but we must have cover for our attacks so that we stay balanced on the pitch. We want to create goal-scoring opportunities, score goals and excite the fans”.

The home leg serves as a blueprint, in which – with the exception of one or two goals – exactly this was achieved. “We’ll take this feeling with us into the return leg, although the result wasn’t in our favour,” said Tuchel. “We are aware of our strengths and are in a position to beat Benfica!”

Many attacking options

After the loss of Marco Reus (“the intensity of his game is unbelievable”) there’s also the threat of being without Raphael Guerreiro, who sustained a thigh injury after the match against Leverkusen and therefore did not train on Tuesday and underwent tests on Wednesday. Only then will it be decided “which formation we will play in” – and what the line-up will be. Tuchel let slide: “it will likely be Kagawa, Schürrle, Pulisic”.

These three too can decide matches. Despite missing out on Reus, and in spite of the tricky starting position, the feeling currently with Tuchel and his players is that “we can do it, that it is the right moment. We can sense the spirit that this team exudes. And this team knows that it is in the position to score goals. We will do all in our power to ensure it is an evening that will be looked back on fondly”.

Boris Rupert

BVB total!-Video: the entire press conference with Gonzalo Castro and Thomas Tuchel

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