After a super start to the season, yesterday's game promised a lot. As with all duels between the two teams, goals were promised and they were delivered in bucket loads. We had to do without Palacios, Aranguiz and Hincapie due to the scheduling of their international matches, although at least Palacios made it to the bench. Demirbay and Andrich deputised and, in my view, did well in their roles. Our best player in the game was Wirtz however who continued his fine form by managing a goal and assist.
Like with all our Bundesliga games so far, we got off the mark quickly when in the 9th minute Florian Wirtz, who does not have a release clause in his contract, toe poked the ball past Kobel into the bottom right corner to make it 1-0. It stayed that way for a relatively long time as it took until the 37th minute for BVB to level it after a header from Haaland - who else. A couple of minutes later, the game looked to have turned on its head as Bellingham had a goal disallowed after Diaby was tripped in the build up. Just before the break, a quick counter attack was finished first time by Schick who continued his top form, making it 3 in 3 games, to end the first half on a high - it could have been very different. Given the end to end nature of the game it would have been naive to think we could just hold onto the lead. In the 49th minute our old friend Julian Brandt burst into the box slamming the ball into the roof of the net giving Hradecky no chance. A corner in the 55th minute found its way to Moussa Diaby who after an attempted volley slotted it home just outside the box on his second attempt. The match was levelled again by Dortmund 15 minutes later after a superbly hit free kick from Guerreiro. The final goal came controversially - Kossounou accidentally slapped Reus in the face as he was marshalling the ball off the pitch. After a VAR check, a penalty was given which was smashed by Haaland to make it 3-4 to Dortmund.
It was a game we didn't dominate but still deserved more than what we got. A draw would have been the fairest result but unfortunately not every refereeing decision went our way when it mattered. Not only was the penalty decision harsh, we had two potential penalties of our own dismissed - both from Pongracic on Schick. Also the choice to not give a second yellow to Meunier after his clash with Wirtz whilst giving cards to other players was game changing and unfair if anything. It would be wrong to blame the result purely on bad luck as our defensive performance was not up to scratch. Granted it isn't every week Leverkusen comes up against an attack as potent as Dortmund's, it was still disappointing from the back line nonetheless. Bakker I noticed a few times was a bit slow in tracking back and Kossounou was caught out for the first goal and of course the penalty. Again though we can at least take the fact we scored so many goals as a positive - 12 overall or 3 per game is brilliant. Especially considering that was our Achilles heel last season was our finishing. Given our defence is essentially brand new and we still await Tapsoba's return, a horror show like this can be forgiven. Our next run of games is very winnable - Ferencvaros, Stuttgart, Celtic, and Bielefeld. Hopefully we can quickly return to our previous form and dispel the memories of this game. Onto the Europa League where we could look forward to the return of Palacios and Aranguiz and the debut of Hincapie!
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