After the remarkable win in the first game, Xabi Alonso had to accept a clear but unfortunate defeat against FC Porto in the Champions League. Bayer Leverkusen is on the verge of being eliminated from the Champions League.
There is still a theoretical chance that the Werkself will make it into the knockout stages of the Champions League. However, this chance has become significantly smaller due to the 0: 3 defeat against FC Porto on Wednesday evening.
It’s a major setback after Xabi Alonso led the Werkself to a 4-0 home win against Schalke 04 in his first game as coach.
“I think today we saw that at certain moments in this competition – the highest competition – you can’t make mistakes. You will be punished immediately. We should have defended the first goal better, for example,” the new coach tried to defeat to classify directly factually.
He summarized a bit disappointed: “It was a lesson for us today that mistakes are severely punished.” He emphasized “moments when it was sometimes unfortunate, sometimes not consistent enough” what his team offered.
The early goal, the missed penalty and two self-inflicted penalties were not exactly evidence of a calm performance by Bayer 04.
“You can lose,” Alonso stated. “But the reaction is very important.” With that, he was already looking ahead to the next games. Things are looking bleak in Group B: the Bundesliga team is last with three points. Brugge and Porto lead with ten and six points, respectively, while Atlético has four. Jonathan Tah was combative: “We still have two games. We go into every game to want to win it.” The Werkself need two wins at Atletico and at home against Bruges – and at the same time must hope for a blunder from Porto.
This article was originally published on 90min.com/DE as Leverkusen after the Porto bankruptcy before the CL exit: “Next game a final”.
