Niko Kovac admitted Borussia Dortmund deserved to exit the Champions League after blowing their two-goal lead against Atalanta on Wednesday.
Kovac watched as Dortmund were defeated 4-1 by Atalanta in the second leg, completing a 4-3 aggregate win for Serie A.
Gianluca Scamacca and Davide Zappacosta leveled the score with their first-half goals, before Mario Pasalic put Atalanta ahead in the 57th minute.
However, Karim Adeyemi came off the bench and shot past Marco Carnesecchi fifteen minutes before the end, as both sides seemed prepared to battle it out in extra time.
But there would be one final twist in second-half stoppage time when Ramy Bensebaini caught Nikola Krstovic with a high boot in the penalty area, with referee Jose Maria Sanchez pointing Martinez to the spot after a VAR review, while also sending off the Dortmund defender.
Lazar Samardzic scored from 12 yards in the 98th minute as Atalanta became the first side to overturn a two-goal first-leg deficit in a Champions League knockout match since Liverpool passed Barcelona in the 2018/19 semi-final.
For BVB, they now become only the second German side to be eliminated in a two-legged knockout match in the Champions League by winning the first leg by more than two goals, after Wolfsburg against Real Madrid in the 2015/16 quarter-finals.
“When you concede four goals in the Champions League, as we have already done in the competition phase, it is difficult,” Kovac told DAZN.
“We don’t have to talk about the penalty now. We were just not really there when we conceded the goals.”
“In the Champions League these kinds of mistakes are punished, so we are very disappointed and quite dejected.
“After playing very well at home, we can’t let a draw like this slip away here, even though we knew it would be tough.
“We are a Bundesliga team and we have to be able to deal with that. We deserved to be eliminated. We didn’t perform well enough to progress.”
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Individual errors did not help Dortmund in the tie, with Bensebaini’s miserable display starting by sliding in and sending Lorenzo Bernasconi’s cross to the back post for Scamacca to open the scoring with just five minutes on the clock.
The Algerian then deflected Zappacosta’s shot on goal over Gregor Kobel, before the Dortmund goalkeeper’s poor pass from the back led to Pasalic’s cross to Krstovic, who was caught on the forehead by Bensebaini.
But Emre Can did not want to pinpoint any specific player as key to their departure, adding: “I don’t blame any player, but when you make so many individual mistakes it is difficult to progress.
“And if we had taken our chances – and I think we had some clear chances in the second half – it would have been very unfortunate in the end.
“But to be honest, we deserved to be eliminated. It hurts a lot. How many times has Gregor helped and saved us this season?”
“The way he pulled off another great save in the first half was unbelievable. I feel sorry for him! Like I said, no fault, no fault at all. We’re all in it together.”
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