Matthias Ginter: 'The criticism, sadly, is justified'

DW: Matthias Ginter, Borussia Dortmund only scored the equalizer in the last minute. Is this a point you have to be happy with at the end of the day?

Matthias Ginter: No, honestly we're not satisfied. We wanted to win. And I think that if you look at the game, the result isn't enough, because we did have the upper hand overall. We played well in the first half, but sadly - just as it was against Ingolstadt - we conceded from a set-piece. Then it was difficult to run at Cologne and their back five.  I believe we did a decent job of pulling ourselves together again - but the point is still too little for us.

Why did you struggle for so long?

When Cologne take the lead at home, they are very good at defending that advantage. They don't give up many chances and pose a real threat with their long balls. In the second half they made it very difficult for a very long time, they stood up well.

Borussia Dortmund have repeatedly been criticized for inconsistency of late. What's your view of this criticism?

Sadly, it's justified. Before the Frankfurt game we went on a mini-run of five wins. Even after the defeat in Frankfurt things started to pick up. But of course we really needed to follow up with a win here today. We're no strangers to the way you have to approach midweek games and then recover your strength for the weekend. So we can't use the game in Madrid as an excuse. But it is noteworthy that we've been having such a tough time away from home of late. We have a lot of young players with bags of potential, but we all need to learn from these experiences as quickly as possible.

What's missing for you to be real title challengers?

No idea. Maybe consistency? (chuckles)

Matthias Ginter, 22, has been at Dortmund for just over two years. The versatile young defender, who made his name with Freiburg, came on as a sub in Brazil as part of Germany's World Cup-winning team. He also returned to Brazil to pick up silver with the German Olympic team this summer.

Joscha Weber conducted the interview.