Matchday Six: Putting your best foot too forward
By: Scott |
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Some 30, 000 fans packed BayArena this Sunday afternoon, the greater share of them hoping to see a bit of history. Were they eager for any piece of history, they wouldn’t have been disappointed. But instead of being at the match in which Stefan Kießling set a Bundesliga record for scoring in each of a season’s first six, they only got to go home saying they were there when Leverkusen’s 72-match run without a 0-0 final came to its end.
With Werder Bremen paying a visit, today’s match was the first of this season that involved any real underlying rivalries. We last played Bremen in Berlin, when they took the Pokal final and crushed our last shot at playing in Europe this year. Adding to that bitter wound were the unspoken feuds on the pitch between Rolfes and Frings and Adler and Wiese, all vying for National Team respect. Instead of a full-on fight, though, it was a frustrating 90 minutes of both teams canceling one another out in the midfield and catching one another up in the offside trap Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Bayer Leverkusen Team News
Bobel to Bayer
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Bayer, today, announced that they’ve signed Tomasz Bobel to a one-year contract to replace Benedikt Fernandez as second ‘keeper. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Bayer Leverkusen Team NewsMatchday Five: Card Tricks
By: Scott | 2 Comments
Pretend, for a moment, that you’re a pretty girl. Maybe some of you actually are. Maybe some of you have been pretending that all weekend, and making good money at it. But, still. Pretend you’re a pretty girl and it’s prom night and your date is the unsightly fat guy. Sure: you’ve got a date for the prom. But you aren’t going to want to look at any pictures of it. That pretty much sums up the three points we took home from Wolfsburg, and it’s in no small part due to the fact that the chaperone to this particular dance quite clearly wanted make certain nobody had any fun. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Bayer Leverkusen Team NewsMatchday Four: When winning’s not enough
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Bayer Leverkusen Team NewsNumber one? This will not do!
By: Scott | 1 Comment
Complacency and Victory will rarely be seen walking the beach together and those choosing to rest on their laurels soon find themselves driven from their leadership position like an aged ape with a bum leg. Although Jupp Heynckes rewarded the squad with two days off following the past weekend’s trouncing of Freiburg, his immediate response to the match wasn’t one of chest-thumping or even overt pleasure. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Bayer Leverkusen Team NewsMatchday Three; Lord have mercy
By: Scott | 2 Comments
In Freiburg, should you ever have occasion to go, you will find a breath-taking example of Gothic architecture. The Freiburger Münster, a cathedral that only the least observant of sighted beings would be able to miss towering above the city, took 300 years to build and I’d encourage you to climb to the top of its 116-metre spire despite the daunting, narrow spiral staircase you’ll have to navigate to get there. And that’s about the only nice thing there will be said about Freiburg in this match report, since all other points of pride quite deservedly belong to Leverkusen. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Bayer Leverkusen Team NewsBender bumped up
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Looks like we won’t be waiting until next season to dress Lars Bender in black and red after all. Originally set to transfer to our squad in the summer of 2010, the Werkself and 2 Bundesliga 1860 München have agreed to terms allowing the midfield phenom to move over effective immediately. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Bayer Leverkusen Team NewsMatchday Two; Our house is a very fine house.
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There’s a certain pride that comes with moving into a new home. You paint, maybe stain the wood floors, add some wainscoting. Make the place your own. Then, for reasons known only to women and men with personalities too diminutive to hold its own with a dog, someone brings a cat in. Cat’s sorta cute the way it rolls on its back and hits a jingling ball around. But still, that damn cat better not get up on the couch.
Hoffenheim was the cat. The couch was anywhere inside the Leverkusen box. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Bayer Leverkusen Team NewsFirst Matchday: Send in the clowns
By: Scott | Add Comments
Mainz, says Rudi Völler, has a mosquito problem. That problem, in particular, involves Aristide Bancé.
“He’s three-metres tall,” Völler says of the Mainz striker. “Yet a mosquito lands on his back and it’s enough to knock him down.”
It wasn’t literally a mosquito, of course, but the towering defender, Sami Hyypiä. One wouldn’t think merely being an immovable object is something to be penalized for, but referee Deniz Aytekin disagreed Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Bayer Leverkusen Team NewsAhead of the Bundesliga start, the Werkself get Mannschafted
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Undoubtedly we’re all giddy as schoolgirls about this weekend’s start to the season, but the longest week supporters have to sit through has also been the quietest on the news front.
Vidal is back from Chile and set for Saturday’s match against a stumbling Mainz side, who are already off to a shaky start. With injuries, ailments and adjusting to life under a new coach all playing a factor in the first matchday, the newly-promoted side shouldn’t pose much of a threat to the Werkself regardless of who Jupp names for the starting eleven.
A collection of prognostications over at pillendreher-blog.de doesn’t show much that could be interpreted as great confidence in our squad from the German footy-centric press. Read the rest of this entry »
Category: Bayer Leverkusen Team News
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