Standing on the penalty spot, Jonas Hofmann connected with a ball rejected by the West Ham defense. In front, in the 11-meter strip that extended to the goal line, the visiting and local players were located in a crowd that marked a one-way game. Hofmann’s shot, the 26th of his team, this time coming off a corner, went into the net. Thus, in the 86th minute, the scoring opened in the first leg of a tie that West Ham lived through without barely breaking out of its shell all night. It was 1-0. The 2-0, another set piece, fell two minutes later, the work of Boniface. Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen added their 42nd game without losing, prepared the Bundesliga swing, which could take place this weekend, and put the Europa League quarterfinals on track.
2
Matej Kovar, Edmond Faycial Tapsoba, Josip Stanisic (Piero Hincapie Reyna, min. 66), Jonathan Tah, Jeremie Frimpong (Nathan Tella, min. 66), Exequiel Palacios, Xhaka, Grimaldo, Amine Adli (Jonas Hofmann, min. 76) , Florian Wirtz and Schick (Victor Okoh Boniface, min. 76)
0
Fabianski, Konstantinos Mavropanos (Naif Aguerd, min. 86), Cresswell, Zouma, Tomas Soucek, Ward-Prowse, Emerson, Coufal, Lucas Paquetá, Mohammed Kudus (Ben Johnson, min. 86) and Michail Antonio
Goals 1-0 min. 83: Jonas Hofmann. 2-0 min. 90: Victor Okoh Boniface.
Referee Artur Manuel Soares Dias
Yellow cards Lucas Paquetá (min. 21) and Emerson (min. 56)
It was José Mourinho who began to talk about teams in a low block to mean teams stuck in their area. This is how Maguregui’s old bus acquired the dignity of engineering. Years passed. The more Guardiola and Klopp’s inventions advanced, the more they fell behind, and the more their rivals’ blocks solidified. Things have acquired such a degree of sophistication that now in the Premier League defensive models are developed so hard and steep that defining them as blocks would be as unfair as calling Everest a rock. It was this last advance of petrifying conservatism that David Moyes exported this Thursday to Leverkusen: the very expensive 5-4-1 of West Ham with the wings exposed, collected like a granite module tailored to the penalty area, with the first line on the line of the six-yard box and the shuttlecocks on the penalty spot. Without complex.
West Ham closed on its concrete hood at the Bay Arena. Leverkusen harassed him, surrounded him, harassed him with the ball. There was no way. The irony of this situation was that the rich man decided to cast himself in front of the poor man. The London team’s investment in transfers in the last two years is around 350 million euros. The German club has not reached 100 million in that period. The squad that defended had nothing to envy in quality to the players who attacked them. The famous Florian Wirtz is not superior to Paquetá. Grimaldo is no better than Emerson. Schick does not have the aggressiveness or consistency of Antonio. The comparisons are hateful. It is more hateful to see how so much money is invested in talent to solidify blocks and unleash attacks on modern micro-parties, previously called counter-coups.
Leverkusen finished off Fabianski’s goal up to 33 times. The Polish goalkeeper stopped 11 of the 13 shots that were sent between the three sticks. His teammates only produced one shot in the entire game: Kudus’ shot after an admirable ride by Antonio against the German team’s center backs.
Liverpool, 0; Atalanta, 3
Leverkusen’s victory (2-0) rewarded the team most eager to control the ball against a West Ham team that had just trained against the most agile attacks in Europe in the Premier. Whoever comes out of this crossing alive will meet the winner of the Italian duel that Milan and Rome began to settle this Thursday at San Siro, with a header from Mancini (0-1). The big surprise of the day was the beating that Klopp’s Liverpool suffered (0-3) against Atalanta. Benfica beat Marseille (2-1) in Da Luz, in the first part of a tie whose winner will face the winner of the Liverpool-Atalanta match in the semifinals.
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