Manuel Neuer held his hands up. The Bayern Munich goalkeeper took the blame for the goal his side conceded against hosts Augsburg just eight seconds after kick-off, in a match that finished 2-2 today, Saturday, in the fifth round of the German league at the WWK Arena.
Neuer told reporters after the match: "It was a silly mistake on my part. I should have put the ball on my left foot, because two players were pressing me from the right side. Then I tried to find a solution. But quite simply, I should have made a different decision."
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"After the goal, I first had to pull myself together, take a deep breath and get over it," he added. "Of course there was still plenty of hope, because it was only the first minute. We still had a chance to turn the match around."
"We had chances, but unfortunately we failed to take them," he continued. "We were also a little unlucky with some of the tight offside decisions. It is a match most of us have never experienced before. It was very strange to score that many goals and then have them disallowed."
The chaos started when Neuer failed to control a ball played back to him by Luis Diaz straight from the kick-off. It fell to Ruben Vollhaber, who rolled it into an empty net for the fastest goal in the history of the German league. The strike broke the previous record of nine seconds held by Kevin Volland and Karim Bellarabi.
Ironically, Volland's goal also came against Neuer back in 2015.
Ismael Seibari dragged Bayern level in the 55th minute, only for Rodrigo Ribeiro to restore Augsburg's lead in the 64th. Substitute Nathaniel Brown then levelled the score again in the 80th minute.
The draw cost Bayern top spot. They stay second on 11 points, two points behind leaders Borussia Dortmund.