Thanks to a huge hand error from opposing goalkeeper Robin Zentner, Bayer Leverkusen won Friday evening on home soil against Mainz 2-1, establishing a new record series for a German club of 33 consecutive matches without defeat. Leverkusen improves the streak of Hansi Flick’s Bayern, who had gone 32 matches without defeat spanning the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons, with a Bundesliga, German Cup, Champions League and European Super Cup quadruple in this series, then increased by the German Super Cup and the Club World Cup.
With this 29th success since the start of the 2023-24 season, in all competitions (for four draws), Leverkusen took a small step towards a first German championship title. The club located on the outskirts of Cologne is now eleven points ahead (61 against 50) over Bayern Munich, stuck in a deep crisis (three defeats in a row) and which hosts RB Leipzig on Saturday early evening (6:30 p.m.) in its Allianz Arena for the 23rd day of the Bundesliga. In the history of the German championship, never has a team which had an eight-point lead eleven days from the end of the season (Leverkusen’s minimum lead at the end of the weekend) let the Schale, the trophy awarded at the end of the season to the champion, which the Munich residents have not given up since the spring of 2013.
Friday, in a tough game against Mainz, 17th and first relegation which has only won twice this season, Xabi Alonso’s players made the difference with around twenty minutes remaining in a completely innocuous action. On a harmless long shot from midfielder Robert Andrich, Mainz goalkeeper Robin Zentner made a complete hole, releasing the ball into his goal (68th minute).
Until then, Leverkusen had been hanging on, despite an ideal start by opening the scoring in the 3rd minute of play by the Swiss Granit Xhaka. On a free kick played short by Leverkusen, the ball arrived at the Spaniard Alejandro Grimaldo, whose cross was blocked. The ball came back to Xhaka, who scored his first goal in Leverkusen colors with a superb curling left-footed shot that surprised Robin Zentner.
But this season, Leverkusen’s small Achilles heel is on set pieces (40% of goals conceded). And four minutes after the opening score, Lukas Hradecky’s teammates were surprised by a lofted header from Dominik Kohr. Dominant in the game, the Werkself players (the “factory eleven”, nickname of the club team founded in 1904 by the chemist Bayer) struggled to create chances, and ultimately made the difference on an opposing error. “Mainz really made life difficult for us tonight. But three points are three points. At the end of the season, no one will wonder how we played or how we won. It was important to take three points,” commented Xhaka after the meeting on broadcaster DAZN.
Leverkusen showed some rather unusual small signs of feverishness on Friday evening, between repeated challenges to refereeing decisions, or restart errors in defense like that of Edmond Tapsoba in the 55th minute misused by the South Korean Lee Jae-sung.
