{"id":9238,"date":"2024-05-23T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=9238"},"modified":"2024-05-23T12:00:30","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T12:00:30","slug":"proud-of-my-team-despite-painful-europa-league-final-loss-xabi-alonso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=9238","title":{"rendered":"Proud of my team despite painful Europa League Final loss- Xabi Alonso"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bayer Leverkusen boss Xabi Alonso praised his side\u2019s \u201cexceptional\u201d record-breaking unbeaten run but said it hurts that it was ended in the Europa League final.<\/p>\n

The German side have been one of the stories of the season, having gone 51 games without defeat as well as winning the Bundesliga.<\/p>\n

But their hopes of ending a long wait for European glory were dashed on Wednesday night as\u00a0they lost 3-0 to Italian side Atalanta\u00a0at Dublin\u2019s Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n

It was their first defeat since 27 May last year and, while Alonso was proud of his side\u2019s achievements over the last year, he said the Europa League final loss was tough to take.<\/p>\n

\u201cAtalanta were better than us and they deserve the trophy,\u201d the former Liverpool midfielder said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t our day. We\u2019ve had a bad night. It hurts that it happened in such an important match.\u201d<\/p>\n

Xabi Alonso, Head Coach of Bayer Leverkusen (Photo by Lars Baron\/Getty Images)
\nAtalanta celebrate goal against Bayer Leverkusen Photo Courtesy: Yahoo Sports<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe normality is not to suffer a first defeat in the 52nd game. It\u2019s exceptional what we achieved and we should be proud. But it\u2019s painful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ademola Lookman scores goal against Bayer Leverkusen Photo Courtesy: Yahoo Sports<\/p>

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Bayer Leverkusen boss Xabi Alonso praised his side\u2019s \u201cexceptional\u201d record-breaking unbeaten run but said it hurts that it was ended in the Europa League final. The German side have been… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}