Football | Another trophy for Lukas Hradecky – captained his team to victory in the German Cup

Finnish goalkeeper Lukas Hradecky skippered Bayer Leverkusen took their second trophy of the season by defeating Kaiserslautern 1-0 in the final match of the German Cup, despite being undermanned.

In the final played at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, Hradecky was responsible for the save, even though the Finnish goalkeeper has played a lot in cup games this season.

Granit Xhaka scored the winning goal for Leverkusen in the 16th minute of the game. However, the final match became a lot more exciting at the end of the opening period, when Leverkusen’s defender Odilon Kossounou was sent off the field with another yellow card.

However, there was a clear difference in quality between Leverkusen, who won the Bundesliga championship, and Kaiserslautern, who only finished 13th in the 2nd Bundesliga: the divar team had only two shots at the goal guarded by Hradecky in the entire match.

Granit Xhaka (left) scored the only goal of the German Cup final. Picture: Annegret Hilse / Reuters

His club history the season of Leverkusen, which won the first double championship, was the head coach Xabi Alonso under incredible. The team won the Bundesliga historically without losing, and in the end only one loss accumulated during the entire season.

It came bitterly in the second-to-last match of the season on Wednesday, when Italian side Atalanta completely disarmed Leverkusen and celebrated a clear 3-0 victory in the Europa League final. Hradecky watched the losing game from the bench when the Czech goalkeeper Matej Kovar was between the posts.

Leverkusen played a total of 53 competitive matches during the season, of which they won 43 and drew nine.

Hradecky, 34, won the German cup championship for the second time in his career. The Turku keeper celebrated the Cup victory in Berlin in 2018 as well in the shirt of his former club Eintracht Frankfurt.