Dortmund coach angered by Uefa order to play

BORUSSIA DORTMUND 2 MONACO 3

Borussia Dortmund head coach Thomas Tuchel criticised Uefa’s decision to make his side play their Champions League quarter-final first leg against Monaco last night.

The Bundesliga outfit took to the field less than 24 hours after the original tie was postponed when three explosions went off near their team bus as they made their way to Signal Iduna Park, leaving defender Marc Bartra needing surgery on an arm injury.

Dortmund lost 3-2 in a breathless rearranged encounter, which Tuchel claims his side were told they had to play by a text message from Uefa.

“We were informed by text message that Uefa was making this decision,” the boss told a news conference. “We will not forget it, it is a very bad feeling.

“A few minutes after this attack, the only question that was asked was, ‘Are you ready to play?’. As if we had thrown a beer on our coach.

“At that time, we did not know the reasons for this attack. There is a feeling of helplessness. The date was imposed on us. What we think has not interested anyone.

“We wished we would have had more time to deal with what happened, but someone in Switzerland decided we must play.”

Questions were asked whether Dortmund would have been in the right frame of mind to take the field and, after wearing T-shirts supporting their stricken team-mate in the warm-up, their first-half performance proved doubters right as Monaco, who also missed a penalty, surged into a two-goal lead through Kylian Mbappe’s opener and a Sven Bender own goal.

The second half was a different story as Ousmane Dembele and Shinji Kagawa goals either side of Mbappe’s second left it all to play for ahead of the return leg.

Dortmund’s PierreEmerick Aubameyang wears a T-shirt in support of Bartra.