The bitterness of the only defeat of the season, which prevented them from winning the Europa League, is sweetened by Bayer Leverkusen with the victory in the DFB-Pokal, the German Cup that they won after beating the historic Kaiserslautern in the final (0- 1), which this season was about to be relegated to the third German category. The victory did not come without suffering because the team led by stomp on a rival.
It was worth a goal from Xhaka that chased away the stupor with which Bayer started, as if the defeat in the Europa League final had flattened them. Everything fell into place as soon as Wirtz appeared. And Xhaka, capital of the team’s great season and scorer of a great goal.
The modest Kaiserslautern wanted to and couldn’t. He ran into veteran goalkeeper Hradecky every time he appeared. He wanted to grow in the game until at the beginning of the second half his fans stopped the game by sowing the Berlin Olympic stadium with flare smoke. After the break, Adli and, above all, Stanisic were able to increase the advantage for Bayer. The second goal was closer than the tie and an eventual extra time. Kaiserslautern did enough to raise hopes until the end.
Bayer closes a memorable campaign with a double that puts it among the Bundesliga champions for the first time in its history. They had already won the Cup in 1993 with coach Dragoslav Stepanovic, who later had a short-lived and tortuous time at Athletic, at the helm. Now Xabi Alonso is the director. In October 2022 he took over a team that was in a relegation position. They climbed to sixth place to earn the right to play in European competition while already warning at that level with a semi-final in the Europa League in which they lost to Roma. “My commitment is that we will be in the first positions. I don’t know when, but we will be there”, he had warned when he arrived in Leverkusen. And he promised a dynamic, intense and above all “dominant” team. It did not fail. Bayer closes the season with the League and Cup in its bag and with 43 victories in the 53 official matches it has played, the rest were draws, with the exception of the defeat in Dublin against Atalanta.
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