The Amazing Race?
When Patrik Schick, who was inexplicably left out of the starting lineup for Bayer Leverkusen’s first leg match in the Champions League vs. Bayern Munich, scored in the 4th minute of stoppage time (90’+ 4’) to help Die Werkself pull out an improbable win over VfB Stuttgart, it had the feeling of last season’s magical run under Xabi Alonso.
Alas, it is the 2024/2025 season and instead of adding to a lead in the league, Bayer Leverkusen could only cut its deficit behind first-place Bayern Munich to six points.
Is the unthinkable, once again conceivable? Alonso is not ready to give up just yet.
“We’ll see. There’s eight games left in the Bundesliga. Plenty of things can happen. We need to go game from game, win from win. It’s not in our hands, we need to wait, but today [against Stuttgart] was important. The desire, the will to fight in every game is there. Definitely. We’ll use this good atmosphere, this good energy, into the last part of the season. All the players, they believed — it’s definitely a very important win for us,” Alonso told DAZN (as captured by @iMiaSanMia).
It did not appear that Bayer Leverkusen was going to have all that much of a chance to make this a race again, but an inefficient and lackluster offensive showing from Bayern Munich and one key mistake from young goalkeeper Jonas Urbig cause the Bavarians to draw Union Berlin and drop points.
Don’t look now, but it’s getting a little bit hot in the Bundesliga table once again…
