Battling draw in Leverkusen

Match summary

Leweling injured early on

Göz Atın

“A heated, emotional but very nice game”

VfB battle into last 16

“A credit to the whole team”

The match at the BayArena began with a setback for VfB when Jamie Leweling suffered a muscle injury inside the first three minutes. He was replaced by Fabian Rieder in a game in which both teams were initially reluctant to take too many risks.

Nübel alert  

Gradually, however, Leverkusen began to seize control and had two decent chances through Jeremie Frimpong (12’) and Alejandro Grimaldo (14’), but both were denied by some fine goalkeeping work from Alex Nübel. VfB were forced onto the back foot and were fortunate that Edmond Tapsoba could only hit the bar with a header in the 41^st minute, while Nübel was called upon again in stoppage time to keep out a header from Victor Boniface, leaving the match goalless at the interval.

Boniface hits the woodwork, chance for Undav 

VfB were under pressure again at the start of the second half and rode their luck once more when Boniface struck the right-hand post with an effort from distance (53’), before Frimpong headed wide from inside the six-yard box (66’).

At the other end of the pitch, Deniz Undav fired wide from ten yards out following good work from Chris Führich (61’). A short while later, Angelo Stiller was unable to hold off Boniface, but Nübel came to his rescue with a reflex save (73’). As the final whistle approached, Lukas Hradecky was called into action to keep out a dangerous effort from Führich (81’).

Battle until the end

Leverkusen pushed for a winner until the very end but Sebastian Hoeneß’s team defended with passion, team spirit  and a little bit of luck, while also looking dangerous on their own forays forward, to return home with a valuable point.