Bayer Leverkusen has finally achieved its first success in the Champions League. However, the win at Benfica Lisbon was extremely flattering: Bayer was clearly the inferior team for a long time before Patrik Schick scored the redeeming 1-0 in the 65th minute.
Schick then admitted to DAZN: “It was a very lucky win, but it was extremely important for us, also for the Bundesliga. We have a very young team that hasn’t played that many games at this level. But it’s true that Lissanbon was very dangerous, especially Dodi Lukébakio.”
Mourinho: “We win nine out of ten games”
Benfica’s star coach José Mourinho was annoyed: “I told the players: With the performance from this game, we would win nine out of ten games. But the one thing we lost was today. We played very well, but didn’t take advantage of the chances.”
His Bayer colleague Kasper Hjulmand was relieved: “We’re incredibly happy, we really left everything on the pitch today. Of course there’s also a bit of luck involved.”
It was noticeable from the first second that both teams entered this duel with great pressure after three games without three points. The duels were intense, but there was initially little going on in front of both goals: avoiding mistakes clearly took precedence over taking too much risk. This was in line with the recent trend on Benfica’s side since Mourinho took over: Lisbon had kept a clean sheet under him in five of six competitive games.
Lukébakio hits the crossbar
At Bayer the signs were different. The trend under Kasper Hjulmand initially looked excellent, but then came bitter setbacks such as the 7-2 defeat against Paris St. Germain and, even worse, the embarrassing 3-0 loss in Munich. In Lisbon, Bayer started bolder: In the 4th minute, Ibrahim Maza, after preparatory work by Álex Grimaldo and Edmond Tapsoba, finished too imprecisely.
After ten minutes, the hosts also noticeably increased the number of hits and immediately became dangerous. Dodi Lukébakio, still well known in Germany from his Düsseldorf and Hertha days, was too quick on the right wing for the Bayer defense and chipped the ball over Mark Flekken – the crossbar saved Leverkusen from falling behind early.
Bayer is becoming too passive
But this scene seemed to impress Bayer. As a result, the Werkself left the midfield to Benfica, managed little relief and hardly any well-thought-out attack. Tapsoba had increasing problems with Leandro Barreiro, and the handover of Lukébakio didn’t work well between Grimaldo and Tapsoba.
Leverkusen played the few counterattack chances at a good pace, but there were no clear chances to score. Benfica is completely different: In the 33rd minute, the now 37-year-old Argentine world champion Nicolás Otamendi headed the ball onto the crossbar after a corner – for the second time aluminum saved the visitors’ zero. Things got very tight again in the 43rd minute, but Flekken first saved from Lukébakio, then Otamendi’s follow-up shot was just blocked.
Flekken outstanding against Pavlidis
At halftime, Benfica had 10:3 shots on goal and 60 percent of duels won – but Hjulmand sent the same team onto the field after the break. But the approach didn’t change either. Leverkusen ducked too often, had hardly any ideas, acted staid and easy to calculate. Benfica should have been leading long ago, but Flekken once again prevented the score in the 49th minute: Vangelos Pavlidis appeared completely free in front of him, passed the ball, but the Dutch keeper somehow plucked it off his foot.
After a good hour the score on goal looked disastrous: from Bayer’s perspective it was now 3:16. But Patrick Schick showed in the 65th minute what significance this sometimes has in football. His shot from a half-left position, which he missed past keeper Anatoliy Trubin, was the fourth shot on goal of the evening. The fifth came two seconds later after Samuel Dahl slapstick-headed the ball blocked by Trubin back to Schick – who then effortlessly pushed it into the empty goal.
Strong defensive performance in the final phase
The hit had an impact – on both sides. As a result, Leverkusen defended more forwards and managed to relieve the pressure again, thereby keeping Benfica away from their own goal much more effectively than in the previous 65 minutes. Lisbon increasingly tried long balls, but in the final phase Tapsoba, Loic Badé and Jarell Quansah stepped up and cleared up many scenes before things got tight for Flekken.
Leverkusen climbed to 21st place, while Benfica is now second to last of the 36 teams.