Bayer Leverkusen is deeply in a sporting crisis after the embarrassing cup-out at the fourth division club Rot-Weiss Essen. The Werkself have lost a lot of credit in the past six weeks.
The next low blow hit Peter Bosz particularly painfully. “I’m angry and disappointed that we didn’t win tonight,” said the Dutchman after the embarrassing 1: 2 (0: 0) of last year’s finalists Bayer Leverkusen after extra time in the round of 16 of the DFB Cup at the fourth division club Rot-Weiss Essen: ” That should never happen to us. “
In fact, the Werkself, for whom Bosz had declared the title as their goal for this season after reaching the finals last year, should never have lost the game in the second in the Regionalliga West.
Leon Bailey had brought the cup winner from 1993 into the lead after a hard-fought 105 minutes on deep and torn grass on Hafenstrasse and everything was prepared for the deserved entry into the round of eight – then Essen was destroyed by a double strike from Oguzhan Kefkir (108.) and Simon Engelmann (117) the Bayer dreams with a lot of heart and passion.
Fourth bankruptcy in five competitive games
“Lawn, rain, opponents – it doesn’t matter. If you lead 1-0, you can never give it up again with this experience in the team,” said Bosz. Bayer, which was unbeaten in national competitions six weeks ago until the last minute defeat against Bayern Munich (1: 2), has gambled away a lot of credit since then – the unexpected bankruptcy in Essen was already the fourth in the last five competitive games.
Goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky, who was partly to blame for both goals, complained after the game: “After the 1-0 win, we should be in control of the game. I don’t know what we’ll do afterwards. That should never happen.” When equalizing, the Finn let a flutter ball ricochet off Kefkir’s feet, but he dived too early in Engelmann’s winning goal so that the most successful RWE striker of the season was able to shoot the ball unmolested under the crossbar from an acute angle.
As so often in this season, the chance yield was once again the major drawback of Leverkusen. In the regular season alone, Bayer failed to make use of 24 (!) Shots on goal, including a number of top-class players. “And that’s the problem at the moment, we don’t shoot the things in,” said Bosz. In addition to the immense inability of the Werkself, on a rainy Tuesday evening there was an outstanding RWE goalkeeper Daniel Davari and also bad luck with four aluminum goals.
Already on Saturday (3:30 p.m.) VfB Stuttgart will be guests of the Bundesliga in the BayArena – then winning is a must again.
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