“I understand why the fans are upset and we are too”, commented Kroos.


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Lucas Vázquez spoke in the mixed zone in the wake of the Champions League round of 16 second-leg meeting with Ajax, with the attacker commenting: “It’s time for us to apologise. We’re really down and upset with how we performed out there tonight. It’s too soon to say that it’s the end of an era. We won the Champions League in each of the past three season. This year that won’t be possible but we’ll be back for more next season. We’re Madrid and we’ve got a duty to win all of the competitions”.

“It’s a bit difficult to analyse things tonight whilst it’s fresh and I’d have to watch the game back and see what happened. Ajax were better than us and that’s how things go in football. When the opposition are better you have to admit it and work hard so it doesn’t happen again”.

Tough week
“Football is a sport and, at the end of the day, we’re human. There are times when you do better and others when you do worse. You have to recognise that and try to get the best out of each of them. We’re at a failure to explain it, we’re really annoyed about being out of the Copa del Rey, the defeat in LaLiga and it’s been a tough month. We’ll have to try and draw some conclusions”.

“It’s nights like tonight that highlight just how tough it was to do what we did for three seasons. Nights like this prove just how tough managing to lift the Champions League for three seasons in a row was”.