Matchday Four: When winning’s not enough

By: Scott | August 30th, 2009

Earlier this week I read that Jupp Heynckes had told the squad to enjoy their time at the top of the table because it wasn’t going to last. He was right, but it wasn’t through any fault of their own that Leverkusen slipped down to second place. The match against Bochum showed a determined team, high on attacking and dominant in possession. As it turns out, the failure to convert our chances left our title as current table leader well within Hamburg’s grasp. A 2-1 win for the Werkself yesterday let HSV snag the lead after they beat Köln 3-1 today, in part thanks to Köln ‘keeper Faryd Mondragon giving HSV’s Ze Roberto an opportunity to pay tribute to Hamburg Diving Days in his own special way. The subsequent penalty kick sealed our fate. We’ll leave that match report, though, to someone else and I ask God to cleanse me of the dirty feeling I’m left with after spending 90 minutes pulling for Köln, even if that support did only come in the form of shouting “Let’s go, idiots!” at a TV screen.

Back to BayArena. The Werkself hit the Bochum side of the pitch with a flurry of shots-on, but didn’t manage to find the back of the net. Despite clearly being the weaker team, Bochum were first on the scoreboard when Manuel Friedrich helped put the ball past Rene Adler at the 32-minute mark. Some words of encouragement and a pat on the back from our ‘keeper were enough to drive Friedrich toward making amends, and he brought the Werkself level just 9 minutes later.

After the half, Leverkusen kept the pace going for most of the duration, but again weren’t able to turn their chances into goals. Rene Adler played his part well in preventing Bochum’s scant opportunities from translating into a lead for the visitors. With Rolfes firing the ball high from just metres out of the Bochum net, the coach’s frustration was clearly visible, but he soon had reason to rejoice- if indeed Heynckes does rejoice- when Kießling took full advantage of his positioning on a cross from Toni Kroos. That gave Leverkusen the goal that’d be the last of the match and Kießling’s fourth in as many matchdays. Which brings us to an update on my previous post.

Adler and Rolfes were called up to do battle for Germany but Kießling, to the astonishment of many, was not. Instead he was overlooked for the up-front positions for NT staples Miroslav Klose, Mario Gomez and Lukas Podolski and new Mannschaft darling, Cacau.

“I simply don’t understand it, but what can I do?” Kießling said. “I’ll just keep on performing and scoring goals.” That might not even be a requirement. While Gomez stands closest to Kießling’s goal-a-match accomplishment with two on the table for his club so far this season, Klose, Podolski and Cacau follow with a total of zero between them.

National Team Coach Jogi Löw has been getting flack for his choices of late, and stands accused of not choosing his squad based on their club performances. He dismisses the accusations as a “totally absurd,” and says no coach can afford to select a squad on anything but merit. Additionally, Löw warns that the Mannschaft are currently not a footballing powerhouse. One might wonder if that has anything to do with not calling up the players who’ve turned in good club performances.

The Werkself are out of action next weekend, but BayArena will still be hopping as Germany play a friendly against the alleged hosts (I’ll believe it when I see it) of next year’s World Cup, South Afrika. Along with Adler between the posts and Rolfes at midfield, another emissary of the club will be on hand as the NT officially says farewell to Bernd Schneider. Following the internationals, we travel to Volkswagen Arena for a crack at last year’s champions.