It’s been six games since Eintracht Frankfurt had an eleven-point lead over Bayer Leverkusen. But since then, Eintracht has won nothing and Bayer almost everything – and now passed 3-1.
Bayer Leverkusen has continued its impressive catch-up race under coach Xabi Alonso and surpassed Eintracht Frankfurt in a direct duel in the Bundesliga.
The Werkself won 3-1 (2-0) against Hessen on matchday 27 and took their sixth place, which would entitle them to play in the Europa League at the end of the season. Bayer, who equaled the club record from 2002 with their seventh competitive win in a row, are the last Bundesliga side to meet Union Saint-Gilloise in the first leg of the quarter-finals. Eintracht as last year’s winner is the great role model here.
In a direct comparison, the French Amine Adli (10th minute) and Moussa Diaby (34th) shot out for the half-time lead after assisting the outstanding Florian Wirtz. Djibril Sow shortened (75′) before Sardar Azmoun made the decision (90’+5′). When Alonso took office after the eighth matchday, Bayer was eleven places behind Frankfurt in 17th place, six matchdays ago the gap was eleven points. But while the Hessians have only gotten three points without a win since then, Bayer have had 16 without a defeat. In the next game against Mönchengladbach, Frankfurt will also have to do without former world champion Mario Götze, who saw his fifth yellow card.
Adli worth seeing at the start
Leverkusen can even dream of the Champions League in this form, especially since RB Leipzig and Union Berlin are still direct opponents and the rest of the program seems absolutely feasible. The result confirmed a curious statistic between Bayer and Eintracht: The home team won for the twelfth time in a row, and for the tenth time by more than one goal.
The two had previously met 75 times in the Bundesliga and there had never been a 0-0 draw. There was no other game more often without a zero number. And that was done again after nine minutes. After a one-two with Wirtz, Adli tunneled Evan Ndicka, transferred Kristijan Jakic and thundered the ball under the bar for Trapp to end the impressive effort of will. It was the Frenchman’s fifth competitive goal this season, all of which he scored after the winter break.
Frankfurt only more active in half two
Now it was the hoped-for cheerful game. Eintracht could have struck back quickly, but Philipp Max failed from a tight angle at Bayer goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky (13′), a direct acceptance of the ex-national player from a similar position was blocked by Jeremie Frimpong with a good effort over the crossbar (21′). On the other side, Eintracht was lucky when Diaby slipped away ready to score after Adli had won the ball and a nice pass from Wirtz (25′), when Diaby failed to hit Trapp (28′) and when Adli narrowly missed (29′). When Wirtz Diaby played brilliantly again and Ndicka deflected the ball unstoppable for Trapp, the score was 2:0.
After the change, Eintracht was a little better in the game. But the hosts continued to have the greatest chances. Trapp prevented both Wirtz (53rd) and Diaby (56th) from going 3-0 down in the second round. Somewhat surprisingly, Sow then managed to score the goal after Max submitted it from twelve meters. Alonso now strengthened the defense with a 5-3-2, Eintracht ran up – and ran into the decisive counterattack in injury time.
Source: Stern
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