Champions League: Gift initiates Salzburg debacle

To the astonishment of all the rules experts, the Ukrainian referee Mykola Balakin gave a hand penalty, even though Samson Baidoo received the ball from his own thigh to his hand. DFB young star Florian Wirtz gratefully accepted the gift (8th), and so the Salzburg disaster began. Alejandro Grimaldo with a free kick (11th), Wirtz again (30th) as well as Patrik Schick (61st) and Aleix Garcia (72nd) ensured that the Werkself can plan for promotion to the round of 16.

With Salzburg, who were still well served at this level, you no longer need to think about it after this game; the runner-up should rather think about how they got into the dead end. Inferior defensive work including poor decisions off the pitch by coach Pepijn Lijnders make it clear: a reset is urgently needed in the winter for the disappointing sixth place in the league. In addition, Karim Konate will probably be out for a long time with a suspected cruciate ligament tear.

Because in the new year there will be duels with the clubs from Madrid, first at Real and then at home against Atletico. Then things can get even more bitter for the youngest team in the Champions League. First, Paris Saint-Germain awaits in two weeks, and that will be anything but pleasant in front of their own home crowd.

A lot of headaches in times of crisis

The people of Salzburg had never traveled to a Champions League game with as much headache as they did in the pharmaceutical city of Leverkusen. Only 18 points in twelve Bundesliga games, the “Bulls” have never had such a bad start to the league in the Red Bull era, and it will last for 20 years next summer.

ORF/Bernhard Kastler

But new game, new luck, especially on a stage like the premier class, that was Salzburg’s motto on the way to the neighboring country. “We would be idiots if we didn’t try to take advantage of this opportunity,” said goalie Alexander Schlager, who made no secret of his excitement during the tour of the stadium. “When I see the pitch, my heart swells,” said the goalie. He soon lost his joy, but it wasn’t the goalkeeper’s fault.

Salzburg tries it like in Feyenoord

The Salzburgers were able to make their sixth tick on the “Germany bucket list”, after Schalke (1:3), Dortmund (2:1), Leipzig (3:2), Frankfurt (1:4), Bayern (1:3 , 1:7) and Wolfsburg (1:2). Bayer may not have been able to call up his best team, but master coach Xabi Alonso still had well-known names such as DFB team players Jonathan Tah, Robert Andrich and Wirtz as well as the Swiss clockmaker Granit Xhaka and the Czech Republic’s top scorer Schick.

Salzburg coach Lijnders hoped for the Feyenoord face of his team and lined up pretty much like in Rotterdam. Compared to the 3-1 win in Rotterdam, only Schlager was back in goal instead of the currently injured Janis Blaswich, Amar Dedic played at right back instead of Nicolas Capaldo, and Moussa Yeo was allowed to play up front instead of Dorgeles Nene. Despite the defeat against LASK, the system change was successful, but Lijnders changed his mind again. Constance looks different.

Hand penalty contrary to the regulations

In front of the eyes of club legend Rudi Völler, also known as “Aunt Käthe” ​​because of his former hair, the Leverkusen fans celebrated primarily themselves. No wonder, in the 120th year of the club’s history they had finally won their first championship title Even six failures didn’t dampen the mood. Especially because they don’t do well against the current Salzburg team.

Wirtz could have taken the lead after two minutes, but Schlager didn’t stretch for the first time. Leverkusen won the game and it was only a matter of time before the Werkself would take the lead. After five minutes, the scene that caused a lot of conversation occurred: Schick hit Baidoo, whose thigh the ball bounced off his arm. The handball rule states that there can be no penalty in this case. The Ukrainian referee Balakin and the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) Guillermo Cuadra from Spain had their opinion exclusively – it was a hand penalty.

Leverkusen plays Salzburg against the wall

Wirtz thundered the ball into the corner after a three-minute wait (8′). In the next few minutes, Salzburg’s pain increased, Grimaldo scored a remarkable free kick to make it 2-0 (11th), and then Konate also had to leave the field injured. The striker was injured without any outside influence and was replaced by Nene. After the game, suspicions of a torn cruciate ligament were raised.

It was thanks to goalkeeper Schlager that the score wasn’t 0:3 earlier. The ÖFB team goalie made two saves in a difficult situation in the 26th minute, then Grimaldo shot past before Wirtz strolled through the penalty area and scored his brace (30th). Salzburg was only able to break away very rarely and also had a shot on goal through Nene (43′). Leverkusen missed even more opportunities, 18:3 shots on goal spoke volumes here.

While the Leverkusen stadium DJ played “Looking for Freedom” by David Hasselhoff, three Salzburg starting eleven were unsurprisingly given time off after the break: Aleksa Terzic, Lucas Gourna-Douath and Bobby Clark made way for Mads Bistrup, Stefan Bajetic and Daounda Guindo, they came to limit the damage.

Salzburg inferior and helpless

This was initially successful because Leverkusen was clearly saving energy for the next task, including next week’s DFB Cup win against Bayern Munich. And on the other hand, because Salzburg felt more comfortable in the 4-2-3-1. However, it was incomprehensible that Schick was completely free to head the ball in the penalty area and caused people to shake their heads (52′).

Eight minutes later he was once again quicker than Piatkowski and used a cross (60th), at least the Pole was able to somewhat redeem himself with a tackle against Wirtz. Nevertheless, the 21-year-old, whose market value is 130 million euros, could have scored five goals that evening. Goalie Schlager, the best Salzburg player on the pitch, prevented this from happening.

The 800 fans from Salzburg, who had only been able to warm up in the Leverkusen winter village, were already speechless before “Joker” Garcia made it 5-0 after a pass from Wirtz. So Alonso was able to take Wirtz off the field and bring in a 17-year-old (Francis Onyeka) young player. This change alone showed how inferior Salzburg was that evening.

Voices about the game:

Pepijn Lijnders (Salzburg coach): “I accept losing, but I don’t accept the way. Leverkusen was the much better team in all moments of the game – second balls, counter-pressing, pressing. That was a different level. You start the game and after 15 minutes the game is out of your hands with a 0-2 deficit. We lost so many balls, easy balls. We never got our rhythm and they got confident. Then they can’t be stopped.”

Xabi Alonso (Leverkusen coach): “Of course we are happy. We played with great quality from the first minute – with and against the ball. We had a good feeling on the pitch. With ten points and three games left we are in a good position. Today was very good, but there is still room for improvement. We want to maintain our standards.”

Florian Wirtz (Leverkusen double goalscorer): “It was a lot of fun again. We stepped on the gas from the first minute, brought our qualities onto the pitch and had a lot of dominance. We knew about the qualities of Salzburg. I think they just didn’t have their best day today. We accepted it well, found the rooms and then punished them coldly. You can’t deny their courage. We pressed very well today, we just made it difficult for them.”

UEFA Champions League, fifth matchday

Tuesday:

Leverkusen – Salzburg 5:0 (3:0)

BayArena, 29,211 (sold out), SR Balakin (UKR)

Torfolge:
1:0 Wirtz (8th/hand penalty)
2-0 Grimaldo (11th/free kick)
3:0 Wirtz (30.)
4:0 Schick (61.)
5:0 Garcia (72.)

Leverkusen: Kovar – Tapsoba, Tah, Hincapie (67./Arthur) – Frimpong (68./Tella), Xhaka, Andrich, Grimaldo – Palacios (67./Garcia), Wirtz (76./Onyeka) – Schick (73./Stepanov )

Salzburg: Schlager – Dedic, Piatkowski, Baidoo, Terzic (46./Guindo) – Clark (46./Bidstrup), Gourna-Douath (46./Bajcetic), Diambou (74./Capaldo) – Yeo, Konate (16./Nene ), Gloukh

Yellow cards: Andrich and Yeo respectively