DFB Cup winner
Bayer Leverkusen crowns its (almost) perfect season with the double
Leverkusen’s players celebrate the 1-0 win in the DFB Cup final against Kaiserslautern
© Federico Gambarini/ / Picture Alliance
In the final in Berlin, favorite Bayer Leverkusen ultimately prevailed against 1. FC Kaiserslautern and, after winning the championship, also won the DFB Cup.
With a shaky victory in the DFB Cup final, Bayer Leverkusen crowned the most successful season in the club’s history and made the long-awaited double perfect. The German champions beat outsiders 1. FC Kaiserslautern 1-0 (1-0) on Saturday thanks to a dream goal from Granit Xhaka (16th minute). At the football festival in front of 74,322 spectators in the sold-out Olympic Stadium, the second division team led by veteran coach Friedhelm Funkel put up a long, bitter fight.
Three days after the sobering 0:3 defeat in the Europa League final against Atalanta Bergamo and the only defeat of the season, Xabi Alonso’s team celebrated the victory of the favorites. For Bayer, it is the second cup triumph after 1993. In the 81st cup final, Kaiserslautern missed the hoped-for sensation against a long-depleted Leverkusen team in front of the eyes of national coach Julian Nagelsmann: Odilon Kossounou was shown the yellow-red card in the 44th minute.
According to Funkel, the second division team from the Palatinate went into the final as the “biggest underdog” in history. The 70-year-old experienced his fifth cup final after the successful relegation battle with Lautern. When he left FCK, he was denied the trophy even at his third attempt as coach.
Bayer’s pacesetter Xhaka had called his colleagues to task after the huge disappointment in Dublin. “Now we have to see what kind of character this team really has,” said the Swiss. Alonso made five changes. As announced, captain Lukas Hradecky was in goal instead of Matej Kovar; the Finn was playing in his fourth cup final. Kossounou, Robert Andrich, Jonas Hofmann and Patrik Schick also moved into the team.
Pyro without end: FCK fans were literally “on fire”
At FCK, Funkel only brought on the recently injured top scorer Ragnar Ache (17 goals in competitive matches) in the second half. The head coach had lost the cup final against Eintracht Frankfurt 1:3 as a Lautern player 43 years ago to the day. Before kick-off, he promised a “knife-edge fight” in an interview with Sky.
In view of Leverkusen’s expected superiority, Funkel had recently even jokingly announced that he would park the team bus in front of his own goal. But it didn’t come to that. The underdog’s fans impressed with a choreography even before kick-off: a giant red devil reached almost to the stadium roof. After that, however, the Palatinate fans set off banned pyrotechnics almost non-stop.
The FCK had the first dangerous shot on goal through Daniel Hanslik, before the Bayer eleven played their usual passing game in the cauldron. After just under a quarter of an hour, Florian Wirtz was through on the other side for the first time, but shot at Julian Krahl. Lautern’s goalkeeper then chased the ball in vain: Xhaka had gone ahead and fired a brilliant shot from around 25 meters – 1-0.
Leverkusen increasingly tied down the second division team, who were chasing them a lot. Krahl dove past a cross from Alejandro Grimaldo, but Schick missed. After a rough foul by Kossounou on Tomiak, there was great excitement – referee Bastian Dankert showed the defender, who had already been cautioned, a yellow card.
Bayer Leverkusen survives the nail-biter and saves the 1-0 lead over time
Tobias Raschl almost took advantage of the short-term confusion to equalize, but his low shot whizzed past the post. Funkel managed a surprising 2-1 final victory against Bayern Munich as a player with Bayer Uerdingen in 1985 – 39 years later, he was energetically cheering on his team well into the final phase.
Shortly after the break, Dankert stopped the game for a few minutes because flares were flying and firecrackers were going off from the FCK block. Bayer fans also set off pyrotechnics. When the smoke cleared, Leverkusen looked for a preliminary decision – but showed little of its usual ball magic.
Substitute Rache shot just wide of Hradeck’s goal after just under an hour and forced the keeper to make a brilliant save shortly afterwards. Lautern did not let up and ventured forward more and more often, while Alonso’s eleven simply could not calm the game down. In the end, however, Leverkusen became the sixth club to achieve the double. Hannover 96 is the only second division team to have won the cup in 1992.