Bremen battle back to draw Leverkusen late
Bremen's Ducksch and Leverkusen's Boniface traded goals before SV wingback Felix Agu inadvertently turned the ball into his own net. Bremen were nevertheless able to battle back and take a point.
Werder supporters were able to celebrate the first two goals scored in their own arena in the current 2024/25 Bundesliga campaign.
| Justin Njinmah, Romano Schmid | Stuart Franklin, Getty Images |
Xabi Alonso's Bayer 04 Leverkusen have now drawn two consecutive matches on-the-trot The defending champions traveled to the Weserstadion to take on an SV Werder Bremen side desperately seeking to improve their home form. Ole Werner's Hanseaten succeeded in scoring their first goals in their own Arena since the final match-day of last season. Xabi's Leverkusen have now drawn three of their eight league fixtures in the current young campaign.
Unsurprisingly enough, Xabi rotated in most of his first team players. A full seven changes from Wednesday's disappointing draw in France saw Lukas Hradecky, Edmond Tapsoba, Jeremie Frimpong, Granit Xhaka, Robert Andrich, Michael Terrier, and Boniface return to take the place of Matej Kovar, Nordi Mukiele, Nathan Tella, Exequiel Palacios, Aleix Garcia, Jonas Hofmann, and Patrik Schick. Ole Werner had to need to tinker with the XI that performed so well against Wolfsburg, only inserting in Amos Pieper for the injured Anthony Jung in defense.
Werder striker Ducksch managed to record the first shot on target inside of one minute. The Hanseatic hosts actually worked the ball to their lead striker several times in the first half. Ducksch nevertheless supplied only poor finishes from promising positions in the 14th and 19th. The returning Boniface also got involved in the match early, nailing his first shot on Bremen keeper Michael Zetterer in the 4th. In contrast to Ducksch, Boniface did manage to find the right finish at the half-hour mark.
The Nigerian clinically polished off a Frimpong cross on the 1-0 in the 30th. Ducksch's teammates too (Weiser in the 23rd and 38th as well as Pieper at 45+3), but had to head into the locker room without a goal. While Bremen could certainly take pride in their work over the course of the opening 45, it was mostly Leverkusen after the restart. Zetterer had to be at the top of his game to stop Wirtz (53rd) and Boniface (55th) from increasing the lead. Ducksch, meanwhile, found his master in the form of B04 keeper Hradecky in the 67th and 69th.
At long last, Ducksch was able to find the back of the net. Ducksch's finish of a Julian Malatini cross in the 74th served as the first home goal scored by Bremen in a whopping 161 days. Unfortunately, the Werder supporters weren't able to celebrate the sound of the foghorn and the club's "Proclaimers" goal anthem for long. Just four minutes after Ducksch equalized, Felix Agu turned the ball into his own net. Following a bit of pinball in the box in the 78th, Agu - who had been attempting to mark Frimpong - knocked a Schick pass in for the 2-1.
German pheonom Flo Wirtz - who played a rather poor match on Wednesday - missed out on a chance to put a lid on proceedings with a strike of the post in the 84th. The missed chance would come back to haunt the defending champs as Romano Schmid equalized right at the end of normal time. In a spot of very good news for Werner's squad, long-injured striker Justin Njinmah came off the bench to supply the assist. Wirtz missed another chance at the winner at the death, shooting wide at 90+7.