Limping Towards The Champions League
Making it into next season’s Champions League might be as valuable as it has ever been given the massive financial losses clubs will have to contend with from COVID-19. The TV money from playing in Europe papers over a lot of cracks, and while the financial health of the club is rarely the first thing on a player’s mind when he takes the pitch, missing out on the top four could have ramifications far beyond having to spend your Thursday nights in Belgrade or Baku in the Europa League.
All the teams placed third through fifth — RB Leipzig, Borussia Monchengladbach, and Bayer Leverkusen— dropped points over the weekend and with only four games to play their accountants will be sweating. Bayer Leverkusen have the best excuse — they were playing Bayern Munich. Leverkusen scored first through Lucas Alario and FS1 treated us to the wonderfully post-modern experience of fake fans whistling and jeering the referee’s decision to check VAR. Letting a goal in on 9 minutes might rock a lot of teams, but Bayern are a freight train. Kingsley Coman outran the entire Leverkusen defense for Bayern’s first, the recently swole Leon Goretzka continued his scoring form for the second, and just before halftime Serge Gnabry killed the game off.
Gnabry’s goal was the most interesting of the three because a simple ball over the top put him 1v1 with Lukáš Hrádecký but Gnabry shot directly at Hrádecký who made a great kick save and the ball was deflected back into play. 15 seconds later the exact same thing happened and Gnabry made no mistakes chipping the ball over top the onrushing keeper. The broadcast team hadn’t even cut back to the game from the replay of the first chance.
Leverkusen did manage a very well taken late consolation from Florian Wirtz which made him the youngest scorer in Bundesliga history, and well done to him, but his club remain in 5th, level on points with Gladbach but behind on goal difference.
Gladbach will certainly feel the worst of the three after losing away to Frieburg. For the first 66 minutes they could call themselves unlucky. They’d had plenty of shooting opportunities, they’d just struggled to get any on target, but when Alassane Plea got himself sent off with a second yellow card they had a mountain to climb.
Of their 18 shots only 3 were on target. Give Frieburg credit, they did keep a clean sheet, but Gladbach have to be much more clinical if they want to lock up a Champions League place. You could see how much it hurt Marcus Thuram who sat in the grass with his shirt over his face like they’d just lost a cup final, likely knowing their narrow advantage doesn’t survive the trip to Munich.
Lastly, Leipzig were held to a point at home by last place Paderborn. Despite his much publicized(and all but finalized) £53 million move to Chelsea being announced the other day, Timo Werner didn’t seem the least bit distracted. He looked every bit his dangerous self and showed that Chelsea are getting great value for money when he assisted Patrik Schick’s 10th goal of the season on 27 minutes. That’s Werner’s 8th assist to go along with 25 goals in 30 games this season. A player that is worth over a goal a game is worth substantially more than Werner’s price tag, COVID notwithstanding.
Schick and Werner’s work was undermined by Dayot Upamecano being sent off for a ridiculous second yellow card just before halftime. The referee blew for a simple foul in midfield and Upamecano reacted by kicking the ball away which had the referee reaching for his back pocket. Those were his sixth and seventh yellow cards of the season respectively and the red means he will be suspended for Friday’s match with Hoffenheim.
This shouldn’t be too much of a concern for Upamecano’s many suitors. His talented is unquestionable and disciplinary problems can be ironed out. A cooler head could come with age, too. He’s still only 21.
Werner should have put the game away on 66 minutes when Leopold Zingerle rushed out of the penalty area to chase down a long ball but Werner beat him to it, skipped around him, and shot just wide on an open net, perhaps put off by the sound of footsteps behind him.
In the end it was an error from Péter Gulácsi, probably the best goalkeeper in Germany this season, which let Paderborn rescuing a point. A 91st minute corner is not cleared by Leipzig and the ball finds its way to the top of the box. Marlon Ritter unleashed on it and Gulácsi can only parry the ball back into danger where Uwe Hünemeier reacts first and scores a real captain’s goal.
Paderborn will need a miracle to stay up, but if they can perform like this four more times they have a very slim chance. Leipzig remain 3rd, three points clear of Gladbach but that’s three draws from five for Leipzig since the restart and they still have to face Borussia Dortmund on June 20th. Everything is still wide open.
