Reiner Calmund would not be surprised if Gerardo Seoane would soon get his ass stamped. Bayer Leverkusen’s former football manager, omnipresent in the media and not at a loss, has been using a cheeky metaphor to describe the process of dismissing a coach for years. “That’s the way it is in football: If you fail, there’s a stamp on your ass,” said the bold Calmund about Seoane recently, when his Bayer team hadn’t even lost their Champions League away game at FC Porto .
When the 0:2 (0:0) defeat was confirmed late Tuesday evening, the situation for the 43-year-old Swiss hadn’t exactly improved. He is in danger of being sent away from Leverkusen before the Bundesliga home game against Schalke 04 next Saturday, with sufficient postage, but they would probably spare him the postage.
After Bayer’s football managing director Fernando Carro had forbidden the coach a defeat in Porto on television on Sunday, a timely release would no longer surprise anyone. One was prepared, Carro had announced there and before the game in Porto, after all the season had been a disaster even before this most recent defeat: out of the DFB Cup at third division Elversberg, penultimate in the Bundesliga with just one win and five points from eight games and now, in the Champions League, the second loss in three games. All of this is pretty accurate as a euphemism for persistent failure.
Former Bayern professional Xabi Alonso is already being traded as Seoane’s successor
An eventful first half in Porto ended 0-0 but by no means scoreless. A goal was disallowed on each side, and Patrik Schick missed a penalty for Leverkusen. Bayer’s supposed lead by Callum Hudson-Odoi in the 15th minute didn’t count because Robert Andrich committed a foul in midfield when he had won the ball earlier. Porto’s supposed lead in the 42nd minute was also not acknowledged because defender David Carmo committed a handball in his own penalty area that the English referee initially overlooked before initiating the helpful counterattack.
During Porto’s goal celebration, referee Anthony Taylor not only denied Porto’s goal from the monitor on the sidelines, but also awarded Leverkusen a penalty, which Schick failed to save in the 45th minute due to goalkeeper Costa. In the second half increasingly discouraged Leverkusen lost all danger. Zaidu Sanusi (69′) and Galeno (87′) gave Porto a 2-0 lead before Jeremie Frimpong saw a second yellow card in the 88th minute and had to leave the field. Overall, Leverkusen was too nervous and too unimaginative. The series of failures and the impending fate of their coach had an effect.
“We didn’t manage to perform as well in the second half as we did in the first,” Seoane said matter-of-factly at the post-game press conference. His team’s performance was significantly better than in the 4-0 Bundesliga defeat at FC Bayern Munich last Friday, but still: “We are very disappointed with the result.” The emotional state of the team certainly played a role, Seoane suspected.
The US-based sports broadcaster ESPN put the Spaniard Xabi Alonso on Tuesday as a candidate for coaching Leverkusen. The former Bayern professional coached Real Sociedad San Sebastian’s second team for three years until last May. A year and a half ago, the 40-year-old was rumored to be a coach at Borussia Mönchengladbach. From 2014 to 2017 he played for Bayern Munich and ended his career there.
For Seoane, Bayer’s time should end after one year and four months. The first season had been a great success with third place and qualification for the Champions League. But nothing has worked since the summer. Bayer observer Calmund does not show exaggerated sympathy: A coaching position in the Bundesliga is “not a civil servant job for life”.