Wrapped in a thick jacket, Florian Wirtz accepted the congratulations of his teammates. The young national player helped coach Xabi Alonso to make a successful anniversary with a magic goal in the style of Lionel Messi and helped Bayer Leverkusen return directly to the top of the table.
The 20-year-old broke the spell in the 2-1 (1-0) win against the fiercely defending SC Freiburg after an almost unbelievable dribbling effort with 14 ball contacts (36th). He did the preparatory work for Jonas Hofmann’s 2-0 goal (60′). Wirtz was even involved in four goals in the 5-1 win against Karabakh Agdam in the Europa League on Thursday.
By winning the 50th competitive game under Alonso, Leverkusen took back the top position from FC Bayern Munich after one night. The 25 points and 27:8 goals that the Werkself now have in the statistics have only been exceeded once in 60 years of the Bundesliga after nine match days: In the 2015/16 season, Bayern under coach Pep Guardiola had nine wins and therefore 27 Counters started.
“We are super happy because we have the three points. It might not feel so nice at the back, but it’s never easy against Freiburg. We made the game exciting again,” said goalscorer Hofmann at DAZN.
For Freiburg’s coach Christian Streich, a frustrating statistic was confirmed despite Manuel Gulde’s goal (70th): in his twelfth game with SC against a league leader, he lost for the twelfth time. And currently Freiburg, who like Leverkusen play in the Europa League, had to lose contact with the European Cup places.
Just don’t lose respect
The SC won 3-1 at Backa Topola in Serbia during the week, but suffered two injuries in Maximilian Philipp and Roland Sallai. Freiburg went to work accordingly defensively. “You can’t defend everything. We allowed some things. It was our plan to be stable. We did very well, a very good away game. We’ll come back in the second half, so we’ll be impressive,” analyzed SC captain Vincenzo Grifo.
The Leverkusen team did everything they could to ensure that the Freiburg team didn’t lose respect. Granit Xhaka narrowly missed making it 1-0 after just 47 seconds. As a result, the hosts Freiburg narrowed down around their own penalty area.
But the Breisgauers, from whom Streich had demanded an “extremely high tolerance for frustration,” ran into the spaces diligently and in a disciplined manner, and whenever possible all SC players were behind the ball. AS Roma had recently defended in Leverkusen, at the behest of Coach José Mourinho in the 0-0 draw in the Europa League semi-finals in May.
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Streich, as usual, was emotional on the sidelines and always cheered and applauded when a Freiburg leg blocked a supposedly dangerous shot. Despite an incredible 82 percent ball possession, 7-0 corners and 9-1 shots on goal, Bayer didn’t have a really good chance to score until the 35th minute. Until Wirtz had enough: In the tightest space, he hit several players in the penalty area and shot with his left foot into the far corner from seven meters.
Despite the deficit, Freiburg initially remained deep after the break, whether voluntarily or involuntarily remained an open question. After an hour, Wirtz once again started an outstanding dribble, lost the ball, regained it and fed Hofmann. His shot hit the post and off goalkeeper Noah Atubolu’s back into the net.
Jeremie Frimpong hit the post six minutes later after a strong solo and later Wirtz also hit the crossbar (74′). Because Leverkusen is still so vulnerable in standard situations, Freiburg came back into the game with Gulde’s header from a free kick from Vincenzo Grifo.
