Football: Bayer Leverkusen beats 1. FC Kaiserslautern and wins the DFB Cup | EUROtoday

Status: 03:36 am | Reading time: 4 minutes

MWith a shaky victory within the DFB Cup closing, Bayer Leverkusen topped essentially the most profitable season within the membership's historical past and made the long-awaited double excellent. The German champions beat outsiders 1. FC Kaiserslautern 1-0 (1-0) on Saturday due to a dream purpose by Granit Xhaka (sixteenth minute). At the soccer pageant in entrance of 74,322 spectators within the sold-out Olympic Stadium, the second division workforce led by veteran coach Friedhelm Funkel put up an extended, bitter combat.

Three days after the sobering 0:3 defeat within the Europa League closing towards Atalanta Bergamo and the one defeat of the season, Xabi Alonso's workforce celebrated the victory of the favorites. For Bayer, it’s the second cup triumph after 1993. In the 81st cup closing, Kaiserslautern missed the hoped-for sensation towards a long-depleted Leverkusen workforce in entrance of the eyes of nationwide coach Julian Nagelsmann: Odilon Kossounou was proven the yellow-red card within the forty fourth minute.

According to Funkel, the second division workforce from the Palatinate went into the ultimate because the “biggest underdog” in historical past. The 70-year-old skilled his fifth cup closing after the profitable relegation battle with Lautern. When he left FCK, he was denied the trophy even at his third try as coach.

Hradecky returns to Bayer purpose

Bayer's pacesetter Xhaka had referred to as his colleagues to process after the massive disappointment in Dublin. “Now we have to see what kind of character this team really has,” mentioned the Swiss. Alonso made 5 modifications. As introduced, captain Lukas Hradecky was in purpose as a substitute of Matej Kovar; the Finn was enjoying in his fourth cup closing. Kossounou, Robert Andrich, Jonas Hofmann and Patrik Schick additionally moved into the workforce.

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At FCK, Funkel solely introduced on the lately injured prime scorer Ragnar Ache (17 aggressive objectives) within the second half. The head coach had misplaced the cup closing towards Eintracht Frankfurt 1:3 as a Lautern participant 43 years in the past to the day. Before kick-off, he promised a “knife-edge fight” in an interview with Sky.

In view of Leverkusen's anticipated superiority, Funkel had lately even jokingly introduced that he would park the workforce bus in entrance of his personal purpose. But it didn't come to that. The underdog's followers impressed with a choreography even earlier than kick-off: an enormous purple satan reached virtually to the stadium roof. After that, nevertheless, the Palatinate followers set off banned pyrotechnics virtually continuous.

The FCK had the primary harmful shot on purpose by means of Daniel Hanslik, earlier than the Bayer eleven performed their regular passing sport within the cauldron. After slightly below 1 / 4 of an hour, Florian Wirtz was by means of on the opposite facet for the primary time, however shot at Julian Krahl. Lautern's goalkeeper then chased the ball in useless: Xhaka had gone forward and fired an excellent shot from round 25 meters – 1-0.

Pyro repeatedly from the Kaiserslautern curve

Leverkusen more and more tied down the second division workforce, who have been chasing them quite a bit. Krahl dove previous a cross from Alejandro Grimaldo, however Schick missed. After a tough foul by Kossounou on Tomiak, there was nice pleasure – referee Bastian Dankert confirmed the defender, who had already been cautioned, a yellow card.

Tobias Raschl virtually took benefit of the short-term confusion to equalize, however his low shot whizzed previous the publish. Funkel managed a shocking 2-1 closing victory towards Bayern Munich as a participant with Bayer Uerdingen in 1985 – 39 years later, he was energetically cheering on his workforce effectively into the ultimate section.

Shortly after the break, Dankert stopped the sport for a couple of minutes as a result of flares have been flying and firecrackers have been going off from the FCK block. Bayer followers additionally set off pyrotechnics. When the smoke cleared, Leverkusen regarded for a preliminary choice – however confirmed little of its regular ball magic.

Substitute Rache shot simply extensive of Hradeck's purpose after slightly below an hour and compelled the keeper to make an excellent save shortly afterwards. Lautern didn’t let up and ventured ahead increasingly more usually, whereas Alonso's eleven merely couldn’t calm the sport down. In the tip, nevertheless, Leverkusen grew to become the sixth membership to realize the double. Hannover 96 is the one second division workforce to have gained the cup in 1992.