On Saturday evening at the Olimpiastadion in Berlin, Bayer Leverkusen bounced back from their Europa League disappointment to land the domestic double by defeating Kaiserslautern in the DFB-Pokal final.
The only goal of the game was the work of Granit Xhaka, an accurate shot from outside the box in the 17th minute. Despite going a man down in the 44th minute when Odilon Kossounou picked up a second yellow card, the difference in quality between the two sides was enough to prevent the Bundesliga 2 team from making a significant effort to get back to level terms.
Leverkusen justify favourites status
Apart from the obvious, there really isn’t much to be said about the game itself. As the newly crowned Bundesliga champions and Europa League runners-up, Leverkusen entered the final as strong favourites against a lower-tier opponent and didn’t find it too hard to prove the difference in quality between themselves and Kaiserslautern.
Xabi Alonso’s team were at a numerical disadvantage for more than half the contest, but they still managed to keep the ball under their control for 61% of the time, firing goalwards twice as many times (14, four on target) as the Red Devils (seven, two on target). For the few minutes between the sending off of Kossounou and the end of the first half, it appeared Kaiserslauter actually stood a chance of taking advantage of the situation, but after the break, when it arguably would’ve been expected of them to make a strong effort, they were beaten into submission again by a team far superior in every aspect of the game, from the sheer football quality to the mentality.
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Kossounou’s second yellow card was arguably the only moment Alonso will not have been happy about. Having already been in the book of referee Bastian Dankert, the Ivorian defender should really have been more careful when he tackled Kaiserslautern’s Boris Tomiak in the closing minutes of the first half. It was utterly…
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Author : Veselin Trajkovic
Publish date : 2024-05-26 10:25:30
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