Bundesliga
“Perfect season” as motivation: Bayer in last-minute madness
Champions Bayer Leverkusen have recently often scored in stoppage time. photo
© Marius Becker/dpa
Bayer Leverkusen has been behind a few times in the past few weeks. Even 0-2 against Stuttgart. But the German champions simply cannot be beaten.
Xabi Alonso was almost a little uncomfortable. In the midst of renewed last-minute madness, the master coach shook off Bayer Leverkusen turned their heads in disbelief instead of celebrating the redeeming goal with a celebration run or clenched fists, as they did recently.
“I couldn’t believe that there was such a crazy ending again,” said the former world and European champion after the 2-2 draw against VfB Stuttgart: “It doesn’t happen often in football. And there isn’t any Explanation why it happened again.”
Alonso later spoke of the “last last minute”, his disillusioned colleague Sebastian Hoeneß of the “additional time of injury time”. The comeback mentality of the German champions can no longer be explained in simple words. The equalizer by national player Robert Andrich in the 90th + 6th minute. Minute was Leverkusen’s 14th goal in stoppage time this season. This is the sixth time they have avoided their first defeat of the season and have not lost a single one of their 46 competitive games.
“Simply pure will”
“You actually think the streak is over at some point. But it doesn’t seem to be a coincidence, it’s just pure will,” said Andrich, who didn’t even know whether his eyes were open or closed when he shot: “I did “I just hoped that the ball would somehow slip through all the people.”
Even captain Lukas Hradecky “couldn’t put it into words. It’s unbelievable. The madness continues. And our faith never runs out,” said the Finnish goalkeeper: “No opponent wants to play against us at the moment with a goal behind. They know that we will come at some point.” When asked whether the many late goals were also luck, Hradecky replied: “A few of them for sure. I would say 50:50 between quality and luck.”
What is particularly remarkable is the willpower of the late equalizing goals like on Saturday or a week earlier in the 1-1 draw in Dortmund, because Bayer are already champions. And the next highlight is already coming up with the semi-final first leg in the Europa League on Thursday at AS Roma. But the team has a huge drive to not want to lose a league game with all its might. “The goal is clear: we want to stay unbeaten until the end of the season,” said Alonso. Because that would be historic. No team has achieved this in 60 years of the Bundesliga.
Goal: perfect season
Andrich also assured that this was “a huge drive”: “That’s why we wanted a draw at Biegen. We opened very early and took a lot of risks. Now we still have three games to go before we become unbeatable .” Or as Hradecky put it: “Three games left until the perfect season. That motivates us.” Frankfurt, Bochum and Augsburg are the final opponents. Next Sunday in Frankfurt, however, Alonso will be suspended because of his fourth yellow card.
This will be a real test again. “In the last five years we didn’t get anything at my old club,” recalled Hradecky, who actually lost all of his away games in Frankfurt with Bayer. But the 34-year-old is currently experiencing the best time of his career, crowned by the personal happiness of the birth of his first daughter Lily on January 7th. “It’s really a very nice phase,” said Hradecky and added with a laugh in the ZDF sports studio: “My daughter doesn’t know any other champion than Bayer Leverkusen.”