Coach Xabi Alonso’s side have no problems at Ferencváros Budapest and advance to the next round. The game begins with a lightning start.
Bayer Leverkusen is in the quarter-finals of the Europa League. In the round of 16 second leg at Ferencváros Budapest, the Werkself easily won 2-0 (1-0), repeating the result from the first leg.
Moussa Diaby (3rd) and Amine Adli (81st) scored for the success of coach Xabi Alonso’s team in the Hungarian capital. In addition to FC Bayern Munich in the Champions League, Bayer is the only German club that is still in one of the competitions. A total of seven clubs were still in the round of 16. The Munich team are coming to the BayArena for the league duel on Sunday. This will be a special game, especially for Alonso, who played for Munich from 2014 to 2017.
This is how the game went:
Ferencváros had relocated to the nearly 70,000-seat Puskás Aréna for the biggest game in Hungarian club football in almost 20 years. It wasn’t completely full, but the visitors provided a magnificent backdrop. Both the team and the Hungarian fans got really busy at the start of the game. An early goal was the motto to shake the arena and shake Bayer. The early goal came after 161 seconds – but on the other side. After a long ball from Edmond Tapsoba, Diaby pulled up and away and finished thoughtfully.
But the Hungarians quickly recovered. With the abolition of the away goals rule, the endeavor did not seem completely hopeless. A long-range shot by full-back Eldar Civic just missed the goal (8′), Leverkusen goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky made a splendid save against Amer Gojak (22′) and a deflected shot by Adama Traoré saved the crossbar (38′). Overall, Leverkusen played calmly and orderly, although not without mistakes. Overall, Bayer did not put enough needles in the first round, a shot from Jeremie Frimpong (32′), a header from Tapsoba (33′) after a corner and a shot from Diaby (45′ + 1) at least caused some danger.
Curious: Immediately after the change, Leverkusen almost increased in the same way as they had taken the lead. This time it was the fourth minute of the second half when Tapsoba played a long ball to Diaby, who this time was repelled to Mitchel Bakker – but the Dutchman was stopped at the last moment. But now the guests were no longer as passive as in the first round and had the events under control much better. But in front of Frimpong’s goal, Bakker was offside (52′) and Diaby hit the post (57′). Only Adli provided the redeeming 2:0.
