Away win on artificial turf
Hoppel goal ensures Leipzig’s perfect CL start
September 19, 2023, 8:41 p.m
On unfamiliar ground, Rasenballsport Leipzig takes an early lead – but then it takes a long time for the Young Boys Bern to clear things up. In the final phase, a touchdown and a counterattack gave the Bundesliga club a perfect start in the Champions League.
Dream start, disillusionment – and then redemption: Xaver Schlager and Benjamin Sesko gave RB Leipzig a successful start to the Champions League despite a mysterious drop in performance. The Austrian (73rd minute) turned things around in the 3-1 (1-1) win at outsiders Young Boys Bern with a touchdown from around 20 meters, Benjamin Sesko (90th + 3) scored the late winning goal. Mohamed Simakan (3rd) had previously given the Saxons a perfect start. But in front of 31,500 spectators in the sold-out Wankdorf Stadium, Bern equalized through Meschack Elia (33′).
“Today it was important that we won. We have the three points. We knew it would be a difficult game,” said Xavi Simons on DAZN. Thanks to the victory on artificial turf, Leipzig is now not under as much pressure on matchday two against defending champions Manchester City as if they had lost a point.
The Leipzig team started as if they could hardly wait to finally compete in the premier class again. After just over 30 seconds, new signing Loïs Openda had the first good chance, but his shot went into the side netting. Just two minutes later, after a corner from David Raum, Simakan headed the ball into the near corner. Bern’s goalkeeper Anthony Racioppi looked anything but good.
So everything actually went according to plan for the guests. Actually – because after the clear playful dominance at the start of the game, the Leipzig team suddenly stopped. Instead of continuing to combine quickly forward, almost only long balls followed. All precision was lost when switching. Rose noticed this on the sidelines and complained loudly about his team’s bad passes. But it didn’t help. Elia scored with a pike into the far corner for the ever-improving Swiss.
Timo Werner only plays for a few minutes
Due to the mysterious irruption of lawn ball sports, the stadium also became increasingly noisy. Former Bundesliga professional Raphael Wicky led Bern to championship and cup victory last summer – the spectators were correspondingly enthusiastic about the club’s third participation in the group phase of the Champions League. In this phase, the game was played almost exclusively in half of the increasingly passive Leipzig team.
Why RB dismantled in such a way was probably a mystery, and not just to Rose. Even after the break, there was hardly anything from his team at first. The only hope for a turnaround was a controversial scene in the hosts’ penalty area. A few minutes after the break, Xavi Simons fell after a challenge with Racioppi, but the referee initially decided to continue play. Then he looked at the scene on the screen: Because Xavi had actively sought contact with the goalkeeper’s foot, there was no penalty.
Nevertheless, the Bundesliga team got back into the game better afterwards. After another strong cross from Raum, Openda only had to head it into the goal from close range – but Racioppi failed. Shortly afterwards, substitute Benjamin Sesko (67th) scored with a header after another pass from space – but he was just offside. Leipzig now got back into the game better and better, also because Bern was apparently running out of breath. Schlager took advantage of the Swiss’ increasing passivity and shot into the far corner: the ball landed several times and bounced over the line.
Leipzig now dominated the game, which at least helped Timo Werner make a short appearance. The out-of-form national striker came into the game for Openda in the 88th minute. Shortly afterwards, Sesko made the final score.