Stindl equalizes late
At noon there were rumors that coach Daniel Farke had decided to leave, in the evening a successful comeback thanks to two bizarre goal gifts: Borussia Mönchengladbach ended a turbulent week with a point in the Rhenish duel at Bayer Leverkusen that was no longer considered possible. Whether the 2: 2 after 0: 2 deficit will help Farke to keep his job beyond the end of the season seems questionable. In any case, Gladbach will end the season in a double-digit place in the table.
Three days after the bitter semifinals in the Europa League, Leverkusen have to worry about qualifying for an international competition again, but they have it in their own hands at the season finale. Amine Adli (15th) and Kerem Demirbay (20th) gave Bayer a 2-0 lead. But national team players Jonas Hofmann (58th) and Lars Stindl (90th) used two complete dropouts for Leverkusen to win a point in front of 30,210 spectators. In the fifth minute of added time, Leverkusen’s Piero Hincapié saw red after a hard foul on Julian Weigl.
Sports director Roland Virkus had explained in “Kicker” that the report in the “Rheinische Post” about Farke’s certain end at the end of the season was “unfounded” and “simply wrong”. He also denied again shortly before the start of the game in “Dazn”. But since two days after the 2: 5 in the previous week there were rumors of leave floating through Mönchengladbach without comment, further cooperation seems difficult to imagine at the moment. Especially since the performance against tired Leverkusen seemed uninspired and lifeless for almost an hour.
Leverkusen are one point ahead of VfL Wolfsburg in sixth place going into the final day of the game. If they hold this rank, they would start in the Europa League if Leipzig won the cup, and if Frankfurt win the cup, Bayer would have to go to the Conference League. Leverkusen would only be an international spectator next year if they slipped down to seventh place and were successful in Frankfurt.
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Before the game, Bayer said goodbye to four pros in ex-national player Karim Bellarabi, who played eleven seasons for the Werkself, full-back Daley Sinkgraven, reserve goalkeeper Andrey Lunev and attacking player Callum Hudson-Odoi. And unlike Thursday’s Europa League semi-final second leg against AS Roma, which ended 0-0 after 23-1 shots on goal, coach Xabi Alonso’s team were effective on Sunday and took advantage of the first two chances .
Adli initially escaped after a nice pass from Piero Hincapié Marvin Friedrich and tunnelled goalkeeper Jan Olschowsky with his left, who replaced the injured Jonas Omlin. The 21-year-old also made an unfortunate impression with the second goal, when Demirbay headed in from close range after a Jeremie Frimpong cross. When the hosts had their third chance in an overall unspectacular first half, Olschowsky was on the spot: he parried Adli’s shot from a tight angle, and Moussa Diaby went well over the second attempt (41′). Gladbach only had a chance thanks to help from the opposition when Bayer keeper Lukas Hradecky had to follow up twice after a shot by Hofmann (39′).
Overall, the Leverkusen team seemed downright asleep due to the harmlessness of the Gladbachers and only did the bare minimum with the Rome game in their bones. Which was promptly punished when Hradecky failed to control Mitchel Bakker’s disastrous back pass and slotted in Hofmann. Although Gladbach slowly increased the pressure and only had chances in the closing stages, Bayer seemed to be looking for the final whistle early on. After just missing the 2:2 in the 85th minute, Stindl used a blackout by Nadiem Amiri to equalize.
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