'We are not animals, we are people': Sokratis slams UEFA treatment after bomb attack on Dortmund
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Updated 12/04/2017 at 21:51 GMT
Sokratis Papastathopoulos says he feels as though he was treated like an animal by UEFA after Borussia Dortmund had to play their Champions League quarter-final a day after being in a bomb attack.
Dortmund's Greek defender Sokratis is shown a yellow card by referee Nicola Rizzoli vie for the ball during the UEFA Champions League 1st leg quarter-final football match BVB Borussia Dortmund v Monaco in Dortmund, western Germany on April 12, 2017.
Image credit: AFP
The Bundesliga side lost 3-2 just a day after their team bus was caught up in three blasts as they left their hotel on the way to the Signal Iduna Park.
Manager Thomas Tuchel revealed after the game that his team were not given the option to delay any further after they were informed by text that the game had been rearranged.
And Sokratis, who saw team-mate Marc Bertra taken to hospital to have surgery on an arm injury sustained in the attack, also slammed UEFA for the way the squad were treated.
"I am happy first that I am alive," he told ESPN FC. "It was the most difficult day that I have lived in my life and I hope that nobody else has to live this day. After yesterday I don't have any more space to think about the game.
They [UEFA] have to understand that we are not animals. We are people who have families, who have kids in the house. And we are not animals. I am happy that all the players are alive, and all the staff are alive.
"It is very difficult today to think to go and play football. For everybody, it is very difficult to go to work after yesterday. I hope that what happened to us, never happens to anyone else. I hope that was the last time.
"We will speak with our president and with our coach. But we don't have any solutions. I feel like what I said before: I feel like an animal and not like a person. Who doesn't live this can't understand how big it was for us."
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