Europe experts lose
Frankfurt is taking it easy, RB has to tremble now
05/02/2022 10:27 p.m
RB Leipzig and Eintracht Frankfurt are each facing a big game in the Europa League, but in everyday life the dress rehearsal goes wrong: both teams lose at the late end of the 32nd match day of the Bundesliga. Bankruptcy can be expensive for Leipzig.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen – Eintracht Frankfurt 2: 0 (1: 0)
Bayer Leverkusen is on course for the Champions League, while Eintracht Frankfurt conceded an expected defeat between the semi-final highlights in the Europa League with a B-Elf. Leverkusen consolidated their third place on Monday evening with a 2-0 (1-0) win over the Hessians, who changed eight positions compared to the 2-1 win at West Ham United. The defeat cannot seriously be described as a failed dress rehearsal.
On Thursday, Eintracht welcomes the Londoners in the fight for the final. In addition, for Frankfurt, for which the league is no longer about anything, there was nothing to get in Leverkusen in the past few years, even with the best line-up. This was the seventh defeat in a row at the BayArena with an unbelievable 2:25 goals. For Bayer, the safe participation in the European Cup, which was already certain at the start of the weekend due to the results, is only a stopover. The goal is clearly the Champions League. And that’s very close. Paulinho (18th) and Patrik Schick (51st) scored the goals on Monday with his 22nd goal of the season.
The Frankfurters didn’t really seem unmotivated for the supposedly annoying stopover between the two West Ham games. Apparently the final tension was missing. The weakened Leverkusen team allowed the Hessians to play along and waited for counterattacks with their fast players. And one of the first led to success. Moussa Diaby, who was as fast as an arrow, pulled away, served Paulinho with an outside instep pass and the Brazilian, who had been successful last week, scored his fourth goal of the season through Kevin Trapp’s legs. Schick also scored in the 34th minute, but had previously been offside. The Frankfurters hardly came dangerously in front of the goal. Goncalo Paciencia’s first shot on goal came in the 38th minute and was completely harmless, while Jens Petter Hauge’s was only slightly more dangerous despite a good position (42′).
Coach Oliver Glasner saved more energy at the break and made three changes. Tuta and Filip Kostic were the only two outfield players left in the starting XI compared to the game in London. The goal after the break scored again Bayer. Schick’s jubilation was initially interrupted by referee Benjamin Cortus for offside. However, video evidence showed that the Czech had not been offside by millimeters. The ball went through Trapp’s legs again, and Diaby provided the assist again; it was his eleventh of the current season.
Borussia Mönchengladbach – RB Leipzig 3: 1 (2: 1)
Europa League semi-finalist RB Leipzig has suffered another setback in the fight for the Champions League qualification in the Bundesliga. At Borussia Mönchengladbach, the team of coach Domenico Tedesco lost 1: 3 (1: 2) and thus conceded the second defeat in the league in a row – this time with a majority. Gladbach’s Nico Elvedi saw the red card about half an hour before the end because of an emergency brake (64th minute).
Three days before the semi-final second leg at Glasgow Rangers, Leipzig missed the leap back into the top four teams in the table and is only fifth after 32 match days. Goals from Breel Embolo (17th minute) and Jonas Hofmann (45th + 2/77th) in front of 32,324 spectators led to Gladbach’s second win against Leipzig. Only Christopher Nkunku (36th) was successful for the cup finalists, who only dominated in the second half. After a very disappointing season overall, Gladbach can still hope for a conciliatory end to the season and a single-digit place in the table again. Borussia have always managed to do that for ten years.
Only after the break, when Leipzig suddenly put pressure on, did coach Adi Hütter’s team have to fight for victory. Before the change, Leipzig had seemed quite inhibited between the semifinals against Rangers. With five new players compared to the 1-0 win against Glasgow last Thursday, the visitors left the game to Borussia, who did not play international Matthias Ginter. Ginter is said to be about to return to his youth club SC Freiburg at the end of the season, which is now in a Champions League spot ahead of Leipzig.
Leipzig was given the tour of Embolo by Konrad Laimer himself. It was the fifth goal in the last six league games for the Swiss international. The Saxons were lucky after almost half an hour that referee Martin Petersen left Josko Gvardiol, who had already been warned, on the field after his second yellow-worthy foul. The Croatian was taken off the field by Tesdesco for Marcel Halstenberg shortly afterwards, but Leipzig was able to continue playing with eleven players and, thanks to individual class, equalized at the first opportunity.
Nkunku, who has been so strong this season, received a pass from André Silva and made four Borussia look old: Luca Netz, Nico Elvedi, Ramy Bensebaini and keeper Yann Sommer had no chance against the French offensive player, who scored his 31st competitive goal in the 48th game game scored this season. Overall, however, the Gladbachers kept the pressure on at least before the break and deservedly went into the break with a lead because national player Hofmann used a brilliant Embolo pass in injury time in the first half.
After the break, only Leipzig played and after an hour they were in the majority, because Elvedi’s clumsy attempt to defend against Nkunku failed and the Swiss had to leave the field because of this emergency brake. Despite now significantly more ball possession and the numerical superiority, Leipzig was too unimaginative in attack and even conceded the third goal through Hofmann. The Saxons fly straight from Düsseldorf to Scotland on Tuesday, where the return leg in Glasgow is scheduled for Thursday. RB won the semi-final first leg of the Europa League 1-0.