Led twice, Leverkusen won a spectacular victory on Saturday at Leipzig (3-2), thanks to Piero Hincapie in added time, and consolidated its first place with a provisional seven-point lead over Bayern Munich, who plays on Sunday.
Like last week on the Augsburg pitch with a goal from Exequiel Palacios, it was in the last seconds of the match that Leverkusen secured their 15th victory of the season in the Bundesliga, this time through Piero Hincapie.
Leverkusen thus totals 48 points (15 wins, 3 draws), seven better than Thomas Tuchel’s men, who host Werder Bremen in their Allianz Arena on Sunday (3:30 p.m.) on behalf of the 18th day and Union Berlin Wednesday, in a late match of the 13th day. In the event of a double success, the Munich residents will return to a small point of the leader’s chair, ceded to Leverkusen on the evening of the 7th day at the beginning of October.
The Bundesliga weekend poster kept all its promises. Leipzig opened the scoring with Xavi Simons, with an exceptional goal. Served by Xander Schlager, he controlled the ball twice in a pivot, and struck in stride to deceive Leverkusen goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky. Returning from the locker room, Leverkusen equalized through Nathan Tella (47th) after an extremely fluid movement between Florian Wirtz, Jonas Hofman, Alejandro Grimaldo, which left the Leipzig defense in place.
And while Leverkusen seemed to have taken control of the match, Marco Rose’s men scored a goal on a counter-attack initiated by Xavi Simons and concluded in ten seconds by Lois Openda, after a relay from Dani Olmo (56th). Seven minutes later, on a corner taken by Hofman, Wirtz maliciously prevented the exit of Janis Blaswich and Jonathan Tah was able to equalize with a header. In added time, while Leverkusen pressed on Blaswich’s goal, it was Hincapie who freed the Leverkusen supporters.