Coach Xabi Alonso of German football champions Bayer Leverkusen has changed almost half of the starting eleven for the DFB Cup final against 1. FC Kaiserslautern. Compared to the 0:3 defeat in the Europa League final on Wednesday against Atalanta Bergamo, Alonso made five changes. As announced, captain Lukas Hradecky will be in goal instead of Matej Kovar.
Odilon Kossounou, Robert Andrich, Jonas Hofmann and Patrik Schick will also be joining the team. Piero Hinacpie, Josip Stanisic, Exequiel Palacios and Amine Adli will initially be on the bench. At the second division club from Kaiserslautern, the old coach put his top scorer Ragnar Ache, who has recently been injured, on the bench.