Casillas upbeat after Bayern defeat

Iker Casillas refused to be downcast after Real Madrid’s 2-1 loss at Bayern Munich in Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg.

Real looked set to snatch a draw at the Allianz Arena when Mesut Ozil cancelled out Franck Ribery’s opener, but Mario Gomez’s last-gasp intervention means Jose Mourinho’s men will now have to win next week’s return leg in Spain to reach the final.

Fabio Coentrao was heavily criticised for failing to stop Philipp Lahm’s cross that led to the winner, but Casillas refused to blame his team-mate.

“We are sad because we conceded that last goal, but we are confident we will overturn this,” Casillas said.

“I think Coentrao had a good match, he had to control Robben who’s a great player, but in the last minute he was faced with Lahm, who’s a very vertical threat and he slipped, that’s bad luck, not a bad performance.”

Casillas also defended Madrid taking the foot off the gas after Ozil’s second-half equaliser.

“When you manage to draw level in a match that you are losing 1-0 you feel happy and you try to preserve that result, so I don’t think what we did was the wrong strategy, but they scored a second. That’s football,” he said.

“Now we have to think about Barcelona next Saturday and then we can focus on Bayern again whom we only have to beat 1-0 to advance.”