Leverkusen (dpa) – The goals are great, as always, the prospects are poor. For Bayer Leverkusen, the minimum goal of the Champions League is in danger due to the current negative run.
Also in the new year, the top-class team of trainer Gerardo Seoane and top scorer Patrik Schick remains without a win. After all, Jonathan Tah saved the insecure Werkself a point in the 2: 2 (1: 1) on Saturday against Union Berlin shortly before the end (84th minute).
Seoane: “Have to achieve a certain consistency”
But even that is actually too little for the Rhinelander, who would really like to be part of the teams that want to outsmart the overpowering FC Bayern in the Bundesliga. Bayer is a long way from that after their fifth competitive game without a win. With 29 points from 18 games, Leverkusen flew out of the Champions League ranks for the time being. “If we want to achieve our goal, we have to achieve a certain degree of constancy,” said Seoane after the new setback, which also did not change anything about Schick’s 17th goal of the season (38th), because the rebellious union with a double from Grischa Prömel (44th). / 49.) For a long time despite inferiority.
Especially defensively, Seoane’s team should quickly become more stable. At this point in time, Leverkusen conceded 30 goals only once in this millennium (2019). “We are missing the last percentage of intensity,” Tah confessed. The fact that there was no victory in the long, deliberate game is a strain on my nerves. “We didn’t exactly have the best end of the first half of the season,” said goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky. “Of course that gnaws at self-confidence.”
Fall from the Europa League ranks threatens
The Finn is now even going to Borussia Mönchengladbach with a queasy feeling, which had an even worse end of the first half of the season – but gained a lot of self-confidence at the start of the second half of the season at 2-1 the day before in Munich. “Of course, a much more dangerous opponent is approaching us than if they had lost,” warned Hradecky and groaned: “A win would slowly but surely do us good.”
If that doesn’t work again in the West duel, there is even a risk of falling from the Europa League ranks. “The team has to go through that now,” said Seoane about the current phase, which actually doesn’t seem that precarious. It is normal for European Cup aspirants to go through highs and lows over the course of a season. But in Leverkusen it should be a little more. Since the ambitious Catalan Fernando Carro took office as head of management in 2018, those responsible have not tire of emphasizing a longing for a title.
That may irritate outsiders a little. The previous title win was almost three decades ago. In 1993 there was once the DFB Cup to marvel at at the Bayer plant. But if a global corporation like Bayer is constantly pumping money into the club, then it also wants to see income. And so the pressure is high to end up consistently ahead of the competition, at least in the league, which is not lavishly subsidized year after year. But even that didn’t always work out in the end. Bayer has not reached the Champions League twice recently. It could be tight this year too.
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