How Hoff Thorup Explains Rapid's European Exit

"It should never have come to a penalty shootout"

At the very latest after the final whistle, only one person didn't seem to have the bewilderment over the hosts' sudden shortcomings written all over his face: Johannes Hoff Thorup.

While Ercan Kara and Matthias Seidl struggled for the right words shortly after the final whistle, the Danish head coach seemed to have already found the reasons for the unfortunate outcome.

Visibly affected, Hoff Thorup already drew a sobering first conclusion during the subsequent press conference.

Tactics "not executed well enough"

"There are some crucial moments in the game that we don't manage well enough. We have to be able to withstand a bit of pressure in the second half. It's the decisive moments in the game that I'm not happy with. Then it becomes a drama, and it should never come to a penalty shootout where it's almost 50:50. That should have been decided beforehand."

The 37-year-old identifies clear shortcomings with and without the ball: "We didn't implement the man-to-man pressing well enough. There are two aspects: we didn't pay enough attention to the second balls, so we just played into their pressing. On the other hand, we didn't find enough time to get to the other side or behind the defense often enough. We had some good moments, but the passing quality is not at a sufficiently high level, and we don't really exploit the space behind the defense."

Katzer on Transfers: "There's keen interest in our players"

Football

What Hoff Thorup Tried at Halftime

The first 45 minutes were completely different, with his team displaying purposeful attacking football and clearly dominating Hearts.

"They didn't really touch the ball for about 40 minutes. I went into halftime feeling like we were halfway there," said Hoff Thorup.

However, they didn't feel complacent. Instead, Rapid's head coach anticipated that the opponent would show a different face in the second half. "They couldn't be satisfied with the first half. It was then more about preparing the players for the second half. That can be difficult because you have to have a premonition and guess a bit."

However, his team didn't find an adequate answer to the changed approach.

Penalty takers? "There were some clear answers..."

Even in their attacking play, they lacked the necessary conviction in the second half.

"Of course, in my opinion, there were many situations in and around the penalty area. Did we convert them? No. Did we create enough big chances from them? No. But we had control. Then, of course, they scored a goal against us from a corner – and that's one of the crucial points I'm talking about, because something like that must never happen," he referred once again to the missed "key moments."

Despite all the footballing circumstances, it was ultimately the penalty shootout that became the decisive episode.

How were the penalty takers actually determined? "There were some clear answers from some who said: 'That's not for me.' And there were also some clear commitments from those who wanted to step up. And we drew up the list based on what we observed in training – not just yesterday, but throughout the entire season. That's also why Louis Schaub came in."