Jerome Boateng has revealed that he took Bayern Munich’s loss to Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League final so badly, he was unable to eat for two days.
The German defender’s weak challenge allowed Blues striker Didier Drogba to net a late equaliser in the final in Munich and the Premier League side would go on to win on penalties.
And Boateng has admitted that, although he doesn’t accept that the defeat was his fault, he took the loss hard.
“I couldn’t eat for two days straight after that, it hurt so much,” he told EPSN .
“It was a training ground move. Somebody — I think it was [Branislav] Ivanovic — blocked me off the ball, so I had no chance of getting to Drogba in time.
“There’s not a lot you can do about it if it’s done that well. In any case, we had enough chances to win the game before and after that. It wasn’t only my fault.”
The former Manchester City defender soon bounced back though, winning the Champions League as part of a club tribute the next season with Bayern and lifting the World Cup with Germany 12 months after that.
And he credits this continued success to the lessons learned following his red card in a Champions League group stage win over BATE Borisov in December 2012, when boss Jupp Heynckes criticised him for not being ‘clever enough’.
“It was good for me to be on the bench for a bit,” he continues.
“Because I had to learn to calm down on the pitch. Back then, I was so desperate to get involved, to make up for mistakes or to help out my teammates that I rushed into tackles far too quickly. I had to have more control.”
Bayern host PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League on Wednesday evening, as they look to bounce back from their 1-0 loss at Atletico Madrid last time out.
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