Bayer Leverkusen learned from the past and took an early lead over time – albeit with difficulty. St. Pauli made tactical mistakes.
Florian Wirtz made it 1-0 in the 5th minute, Jonathan Tah added the second goal in the 21st minute. In the 84th minute, Morgan Guilavogui shortened the score.
Alexander Blessin, coach of FC St. Pauli, explained on the Sportschau microphone: “The team never gives up. We tried everything in the second half.”
Memories of the Kiel game
One or two Leverkusen fans, certainly coach Xabi Alonso, will probably have remembered October 5th from this game. Holstein Kiel was a guest at the BayArena and the hosts were 2-0 ahead after a lightning start. What looked like a shooting festival ended with a 2-2 draw – another reason why the champions are already well behind the top this season. This time, however, the lead held – but it wasn’t confident in the end.
The lightness of the Wirtz
The St. Paulians actually started off quite robustly in the duels, but revealed an amazing game idea quite early on. They played very high with their defensive chain, which meant that Leverkusen were able to play perfectly behind the chain with through passes. After just five minutes, Granit punished Xhaka with a great pass to Wirtz, who casually tunneled past his opponent Eric Smith (Wirtz is also the Bundesliga leader in this discipline) and effortlessly shot past Pauli keeper Nikola Vasilj.
A careless move by Jonathan Tah almost led to an equalizer in the 13th minute, but the unsuccessful chip cross pass in front of his own goal fell to Oladapo Afolayan, who was surprised by this unexpected header chance and finished too weakly. Eight minutes later, Tah was much more focused and heaved the ball into the net after Aleix García’s free-kick cross to make it 2-0. Jackson Irvine, who was assigned to Tah on set pieces, was fast asleep in this scene – in basketball this would have been called a “mismatch”.
VAR-Dusel for St. Pauli
And things could have gotten even worse for the St. Paulians before the break. In the 33rd minute, David Nemeth clearly tackled the free-running Edmond Tapsoba in the penalty area, but referee Matthias Jöllenbeck denied the penalty and was not corrected by the VAR.
The fact that the video department in the Cologne basement was definitely present became apparent in the 43rd minute. In this scene, St. Pauli repeated the tactical double mistake before making it 1-0: no pressure at all on the passer, no protection in depth. Once again Xhaka was allowed to play unhindered, this time Nathan Tella was much too fast for the Kiezkicker defense – but the supposed 3-0 was conceded again after VAR intervention due to a minimal offside position.
Guilavogui misses the connection
After the break, St. Pauli also developed a bit more of a goal threat, but Morgan Guilavogui missed two good opportunities. Then came “Scheme F” again: This time Wirtz managed the perfect through ball, but Tella put the ball a little too far on the way to Vasilj (65th).
Wirtz himself could have finally provided clarity after 70 minutes, but unlike the 1-0 win, this time he was surprisingly hectic: Jeremy Frimpong sensed a pass from Smith, put the ball across – but Wirtz closed far too early despite having plenty of space off and warped noticeably.
Albers almost equalized
In the end it was almost true. Guilavogui made it 1-2 six minutes before the end after a great individual performance, but didn’t make Tapsoba look good. In the 90th minute, the equalizer was in the air: Andreas Albers came free to head the ball at the left corner of the six-yard box, but put the ball into the side netting.
Leverkusen in Augsburg, St. Pauli against Bremen
Leverkusen’s next opponent is FC Augsburg (December 14th, 3:30 p.m.). St. Pauli awaits SV Werder Bremen in the top game (December 14th, 6:30 p.m.).