11th matchday
Bayer consolidates its lead: 4-0 over Union Berlin
Jonathan Tah and his Leverkusen team are back at the top of the table after the win against Union. photo
© David Inderlied/dpa
Amazingly stable, refreshingly playful. Bayer Leverkusen continues to do well. This is likely to cause increasing headaches for FC Bayern. The concerns at Union are much more serious.
Set the Bundesliga start record, break the club record – Bayer Leverkusen is increasingly becoming a real title contender and the biggest rival of record champions FC Bayern.
In the 4-0 (1-0) win over 1. FC Union Berlin, soccer teacher Xabi Alonso’s undefeated team continued their high and set the club record with seven wins in a row.
Regardless of the travel strain after the Europa League success three days earlier at Karabakh Agdam (1-0) in Baku, the Bundesliga table leaders put on a confident performance and came in front of 29,387 spectators in the sold-out BayArena after goals from Alejandro Grimaldo (23rd), Odilon Kossounou (56th), Jonathan Tah (73rd) and Nathan Tella (83rd) for their tenth success in the eleventh game. Only Pep Guardiola has achieved 31 points after eleven games as Bayern coach in 2015/16 – with current Leverkusen coach Xabi Alonso as a player.
In contrast, Berlin’s dramatic downward trend continues even after the 1-1 draw in the Champions League at SSC Napoli. In Leverkusen, the Eisernen suffered their ninth Bundesliga defeat in a row and fell to last place in the table. Another alarm signal: Union has never had 419 minutes without a goal in the upper house of football. The ongoing misery is likely to further increase the pressure on coach Urs Fischer, even if the fans remain surprisingly loyal to him.
Hoping for a similarly courageous performance from his team as in Naples four days earlier, Fischer relied on almost the same starting eleven. Only Axel Kral replaced the suspended Rani Khedira. However, that couldn’t prevent the Werkself from taking control from the start. The guests were spared an early deficit when referee Timo Gerlach overturned a penalty decision after an alleged handball by Paul Jaeckel (16th) following the intervention of the Cologne video cellar.
But the pressure from Leverkusen steadily increased. Just seven minutes later, the dense Union defense was broken. The remarkable long-range shot from Grimaldo, who was recently nominated for the Spanish national team for the first time, from a half-left position went into the back corner of the goal and gave the front runner the lead.
Leverkusen’s high tempo and skillful combination play caused big problems for the Berliners. The few attempts to provide relief with our own attacks mostly came to nothing. This resulted in a one-sided game with clear advantages for the visiting team. However, he missed out on making more capital out of it. Opportunities by Kossounou (27th) and Florian Wirtz (45th) to increase the score to 2-0 remained unused. In contrast, the Iron Men only came close to the Bayer goal once before half-time. Janik Haberer’s header (43′) wasn’t a problem for goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky.
After the restart, Alonso’s team continued to push the pace – and were quickly rewarded. A corner from Jonas Hofmann headed defender Kossounou into the net. In view of the great superiority, the preliminary decision seemed to have already been made. In the rest of the game, Leverkusen had little trouble not only maintaining their lead, but also extending it with goals from Tah and Tella.