At the reception of the An der Alten Försterei stadium on Saturday, a few copies of an industry magazine were neatly stacked: Bundesligapublished by the German Football League DFL, and, as it turned out, there was something premonitory about it. Because whoever was depicted on the cover in the style of communist icons, that is: in half profile, looking seriously and clearly into the future, was Florian Wirtz. On Saturday he came on as a substitute in the 55th minute and what he accomplished was a revolutionary act. He overturned a game that wasn’t great, but was interesting because of his stubbornness. And with his 40-minute effort, he helped his team win a third Bundesliga game in a row and secure third place in the table. Or, to put it another way, inflict the first home defeat of the current season on 1. FC Union Berlin.
The fact that Leverkusen is not one of the teams with which the Köpenick ostriches fight on equal terms was one of the reasons why 1. FC Union did not fall into a winter depression. A 1:2 against the champions, cup winners and Europa League finalists from last season can happen; The Advent bells continue to sound sweet and not like an alarm. Even though the Union team’s last win (2-0 at newly promoted Kiel on October 20th) was a few weeks ago and in between they had to swallow the second-round exit in the DFB Cup at the lower-class DSC Arminia Bielefeld (0-2). Union has more points (16) after twelve match days than in the entire first half of last season.
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Coach Bo Svensson sounded anything but pessimistic because of an acceptable B grade against Leverkusen; they had “brought a lot of good things to the pitch,” he praised. Above all, Union actually managed to score a goal after four games without a goal of their own. Woo-Yeong Jeong equalized in the 29th minute. And in the end it really gave the impression that Union only had to bow to a qualitatively superior opponent because they had a player in their ranks who hovers above things and seems to feel called upon to make the difference: Florian Wirtz.
48th goal in the 100th Bundesliga game for Leverkusen: Patrik Schick surpasses Ulf Kirsten’s record
Union had been behind almost from the start because Leverkusen had already explained in the second minute that they didn’t necessarily want to shine in Köpenick, but rather that they wanted to win, in a straightforward and direct manner when in doubt. The opening goal evoked associations with the fool’s mate from chess.
Alejandro Grimaldo ran onto a ball hit long by national defender Jonathan Tah, passed it across to Jeremie Frimpong, who slotted in from a central position, largely unchallenged. Afterwards you could tell from the team’s attitude that the players were coached Xabi Alonso had been trained not to take a step back, not even to blink his eyes, to resist. Union lives from the “special connection between the team and its supporters”, and this is back. The equalizer was, of course, less due to a mystical force than to the indisposition of his defense: Although Leverkusen did not lack nominal central defenders, Jeong was very alone in the six-yard box. “We gave up games like that at the beginning of the season,” said goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky. Not this time. Not least because Wirtz came. “He’s a game changer,” Alonso said.
The fact that he had sat on the bench for a long time was entirely a question of dosage – especially with a view to the cup game that was scheduled to take place on Tuesday at FC Bayern Munich. “We have to protect him,” said Alonso, although he also knows: “With Flo on the pitch we are a better team.” The precision of the Wirtz cross to the Czech striker Patrik Schick had the rating sought by Union coach Svensson “ “World-class action” absolutely deserved: Before the ball landed on Schick’s mighty chest and was pushed into the goal from there for victory (71st), he made such a firm curve that it… would also have worked well in a painting by Kandinsky.
It was Schick’s 48th goal for Bayer Leverkusen in his 100th game, improving the club’s goal record set by Dresden’s Ulf Kirsten (47 goals in the first 100 games). But more important than this fun fact was something else in the eyes of the Leverkusen team: the cup game against Bayern. Because it won’t just be about making it to the quarter-finals. But also to show the people of Munich that their brains can receive and send fear signals. Bayern should feel “huntable” again, said Hradecky, even before he could know that FC Bayern would drop two points in Dortmund.
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