All about the next opponent: interview with Leverkusen expert Sebastian Bergmann

Even the Ger­man cham­pi­on from Lever­ku­sen isn’t quite hit­ting the same level as last sea­son. Ahead of the fourth match-up with VfB this year, we spo­ke with Bay­er expert Sebas­ti­an Berg­mann from the Rhei­ni­sche Post.

With the Red Stri­pe: Hel­lo, Sebas­ti­an! Not long ago, we dis­cus­sed the reig­ning Ger­man cham­pi­on. It’s gre­at that you’re taking the time for our ques­ti­ons again after the Super­cup. Loo­king back a bit: The Lever­ku­sen fan sce­ne cal­led the Super­cup a “fair­ground tro­phy,” but in the club its­elf, which doesn’t have an over­ly crow­ded tro­phy cabi­net, the penal­ty shoo­tout vic­to­ry sure­ly held more signi­fi­can­ce, right?

Sebas­ti­an: After over 30 years wit­hout a sin­gle title, I think they’re glad to take the Super­cup. In the eyes of many play­ers and club offi­ci­als, it’s a title to be proud of—even befo­re the August match, they felt that way.

Back then, VfB over­tur­ned an ear­ly defi­cit, only to give up the lead in a chao­tic pha­se near the end with a man advan­ta­ge. What can be lear­ned from that August game for the mee­ting on Fri­day?

I don’t think all that much, except the rea­liza­ti­on that both teams have the poten­ti­al again this sea­son to com­pe­te at the top, both tac­ti­cal­ly and in terms of game­play. Even though Lever­ku­sen will field a dif­fe­rent team com­pared to the Super­cup.

VfB had to rework and streng­then its squad more exten­si­ve­ly, part­ly due to trans­fers. How do you see the balan­ce of power bet­ween the two teams, which last sea­son cap­ti­va­ted the enti­re league with their foot­ball?

Both teams haven’t yet rea­ched last season’s excep­tio­nal level, but they remain in the upper ranks. Alt­hough the match-up bet­ween cham­pi­on and run­ner-up is curr­ent­ly “only” a clash bet­ween the third and eighth places, the fact that only three points sepa­ra­te Lever­ku­sen and Stutt­gart sug­gests the teams are com­pa­ra­ble once again.

Lever­ku­sen was lar­ge­ly able to keep its squad tog­e­ther; the most nota­ble depar­tures were Josip Sta­nišić, who retur­ned to Bay­ern, and Adam Hložek, whom TSG Hof­fen­heim picked up late in the trans­fer win­dow. At the same time, the team was streng­the­ned with Mar­tin Ter­ri­er, Aleix Gar­cía, and Jea­nu­el Belo­ci­an. Still, after over a year, the team had its first loss and has had more draws recent­ly than they would like. Whe­re do you see the dif­fe­rence com­pared to the cham­pi­on­ship sea­son?

The inte­gra­ti­on of new play­ers is taking lon­ger than last year, when all the trans­fers hit the mark imme­dia­te­ly. We haven’t seen much from Mar­tin Ter­ri­er yet, and Aleix Gar­cía has also not yet lived up to his “star trans­fer” bil­ling, though both have been solid. Jea­nu­el Belo­ci­an has had limi­t­ed play­ing time and is curr­ent­ly side­lined with a trai­ning inju­ry. Plus, some estab­lished play­ers are still strugg­ling to find form, like Edmond Tap­so­ba or Gra­nit Xha­ka.

Noti­ce­ab­ly, Bay­er has con­ce­ded 15 goals alre­a­dy, whe­re­as last sea­son they allo­wed only 24 in total. What do you think is behind this?

It’s a com­bi­na­ti­on of some­what care­less defen­ding by the enti­re team and cer­tain play­ers being out of form, along with indi­vi­du­al errors.

Vik­tor Boni­face is curr­ent­ly the top scorer with six goals, while Flo­ri­an Wirtz has four. Does it feel like last sea­son the goals were more even­ly spread?

That’s cor­rect. Patrik Schick, for exam­p­le, has­n’t scored yet in the league or the Cham­pi­ons League. So far, a lot is depen­ding on Boni­face and an out­stan­ding Flo­ri­an Wirtz. That was dif­fe­rent last year and was also a big strength of the cham­pi­on­ship team.

The­re were recent reports that Lever­ku­sen is loo­king for a new goal­kee­per in the medi­um term. What do you think about the situa­ti­on with Lukas Hrá­de­cký and Matěj Kovář?

Hrá­de­cký is once again play­ing a solid sea­son, but at over 30, he won’t be at the top level fore­ver. It makes sen­se for Bay­er to look for a suc­ces­sor. Kovář, howe­ver, has­n’t shown enough yet to war­rant taking over from Hrá­de­cký. And appar­ent­ly, the­re are gro­wing doubts that he will be rea­dy to do so any­ti­me soon. The com­pe­ti­ti­on for the start­ing spot in goal, as Xabi Alon­so announ­ced befo­re the sea­son, hasn’t real­ly mate­ria­li­zed. In the key games, the cap­tain has always been in goal.

In your opi­ni­on, what’s pos­si­ble for Bay­er in the three competitions—the team advan­ced con­fi­dent­ly to the Cup Round of 16 this week against Elvers­berg?

Defen­ding the league title will be tough, though I still think it’s pos­si­ble if the team finds its rhythm. At least a spot in the top four should be the goal. The Cham­pi­ons League star­ted well, and rea­ching the Round of 16 is achievable—anything bey­ond that would be a bonus. In the Cup, should Bay­er con­ti­nue to get favorable draws, ano­ther trip to Ber­lin is pos­si­ble.

Final­ly, your pre­dic­tion for the start­ing lin­e­up and the score?

Hrá­de­cký

Tap­so­ba, Tah, Hin­ca­pié

Frim­pong, Xha­ka, And­rich, Gri­mal­do

Ter­ri­er, Wirtz

Boni­face

2:1

Note: This inter­view was trans­la­ted from Ger­man via ChatGPT

Pic­tu­re: © Lars Baron/Getty Images

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