Bjelica and Rønnow proud despite Real Madrid defeat

Union Berlin head coach Nenad Bjelica and Frederik Rønnow were proud of their team’s performance against Real Madrid, despite the Spanish giants’ 3-2 win in the German capital.

Union Berlin crashed out of Europe on Tuesday night, losing 3-2 to Real Madrid at the Olympiastadion.

Despite the defeat, Union Berlin had plenty to be proud of after a game in which they scored the opening goal and later fought back to level at 2-2 before Dani Ceballos struck the decisive blow for the visitors.

“We have shown that we’re not all that far away from their level, they were both very close defeats. Now we will have to focus fully on the Bundesliga, but playing against such opponents can help us. We can be proud of the performances that we put in,” said Union Berlin coach Nenad Bjelica after the game, according to UEFA.com.

“We stayed alive until the last minute. We got it back to 2-2 and then we tried hard to make it 3-2, and of course Real Madrid are too good not to take advantage of that. In the end, we couldn’t get the win, but we can be very, very proud of what we did.”

Union goalkeeper Frederik Rønnow, who made a number of great saves, including one from a penalty kick, spoke in a similar vein.

“Of course right now I’m disappointed, it’s the third time we’ve conceded a late goal. It’s always tough, but we can be proud of the game we played. It’s a world-class team we were playing against,” Rønnow told UEFA.com.

“For me personally, to participate in these games in the Champions League, for this club, makes me really proud. We were fighting really hard for this all of last season, and for me it was also about taking these six games and trying to enjoy them. It has been a difficult situation for us as a team in recent months, so I think we did quite a good job.”

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