Leverkusen break Stuttgart hearts in a familiar fashion
| Schick stole it late for Leverkusen | Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images |
Ahead of the game, both teams were in desperate need of a “pick me up” win. The hosts were winless in their last four Bundesliga games after making it through into the DFB Pokal semi-final. Meanwhile, including the all-German Champions League Round of 16 tie, the defending champions lost each of their last three games without scoring a goal.
Leverkusen had history to their side before the start of the game as they were unbeaten in their last 14 matches against the Swabians. However, Stuttgart only needed 15 minutes to debunk that with Ermedin Demirović’s opening goal. The Bosnia and Herzegovina international was back into the starting XI after scoring VfB’s equalizer in Kiel last week.
Demirović got in the end of Lukáš Hrádecký’s save from Jamie Leweling’s attempt to put Leverkusen in further misery. Despite losing his starting place to Nick Woltemade and Deniz Undav, Demirović became the first Stuttgart player to reach 10 league goals for the season.
On his 200th Bundesliga appearance, Maximilian Mittelstädt’s tenacity was the driving force to start the move for the hosts. The next big chances of the game fell for Patrik Schick and Woltemade, but both strikers couldn’t manage their shots to stay on target.
Just before half-time, Stuttgart nearly doubled their lead when Angelo Stiller looked to repeat Demirović’s success when he tried to score following Hrádecký’s save from Enzo Millot. Synonymous with their recent form, Leverkusen failed to hit a single shot on target toward Alexander Nübel in another lackluster first-half display by Xabi Alonso’s side.
The Spaniard didn’t make any changes to the side at the start of the second-half, and he endured another setback three minutes into the restart. Woltemade scored Stuttgart’s second after some good work on the left wing by Millot.
After conceding two or more goals for the fourth successive time, Leverkusen responded well with Jeremie Frimpong reducing the deficit to punish Stuttgart’s unconvincing set-piece defending.
In a rare move by the young coach, Alonso immediately made a double swap to have Victor Boniface partner Patrik Schick up front. However, it was Stuttgart who scored the next goal of the game via an own-goal.
Once again, the goal followed a Hrádecký save as his excellent stop from Demirović's close-range attempt bounced off Granit Xhaka into the net. It goes down as a first own-goal in Xhaka’s illustrious Bundesliga career.
That wasn’t the end of it, though. Leverkusen immediately scored once again with Piero Hincapié’s third goal of the season in all competitions. At this point, the game had a very different flow to the uninspiring goalless draw in the reverse fixture.
Leverkusen pushed for a late equalizer with both Boniface and Schick asking too many questions for Stuttgart’s defense. However, the biggest chance fell for Amine Adli when the half-time substitute failed to test Nübel from a promising position.
They’ll not be long denied, nonetheless. Leverkusen scored late goals in three of their last four meetings against Stuttgart, and that streak extended to “four in five” with the second own-goal of the game.
Stiller diverts Boniface’s cross to his own net as the visitors came from two goals behind to repeat last season's familiar story. Completing the comeback was left into a familiar figure. Schick scored the winner in the 94th minute with a simple header from Frimpong’s cross.
After painful defeats to Leverkusen in last season’s DFB-Pokal quarter-final and the curtain-raiser Supercup, Stuttgart’s bad streak against B04 now extends to 15 games. Just before the international break, Alonso finally gets a reaction from his side in a difficult spell for the club.
Unlike the previous week, Leverkusen took advantage of Bayern dropping points as the gap is now six points in Bundesliga’s summit. Meanwhile, Stuttgart are stuck in midtable as they went into the international break with a five-game winless run.
