After his sensational unsportsmanlike behavior against Leroy Sané, Union Berlin coach Nenad Bjelica apologized to the national player. “I have now seen the scene several times and calmly. I reacted to the situation in a way that I should never have reacted,” the Croatian wrote on Instagram on Friday afternoon. “I’m sorry for that and I would like to apologize to my team, my club and to Leroy Sané.”

Bjelica caught national player Sané twice in the face with his hand during an altercation on the sidelines in the catch-up game at Bayern Munich on Wednesday. He was punished with a red card and suspended for three games on Thursday.

The 52-year-old had already publicly apologized to his team immediately after the game, but explicitly not to Sané. “He comes into the room to provoke me,” the coach said on Wednesday. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that he didn’t react appropriately.

The Croatian was also fined 25,000 euros by the DFB. He was also sanctioned by the Union, as President Dirk Zingler told the “Berliner Zeitung”.