BVB earn a flattering 1:1 draw at Bayer Leverkusen – but have to be annoyed about a late equalizer.

Gregor Kobel raised his arm once more to be on the safe side, perhaps luck was once again on Borussia Dortmund’s side. But this time it wasn’t, Bayer Leverkusen had finally put the ball in the net after 79 minutes of running, Victor Boniface had scored the 1:1. And it was to remain 1-1, which was a flattering point from Dortmund’s point of view.

They were clearly behind in all the usual statistics, possession, corners, shots on goal – only in the decisive one, the number of goals, were they on a par, which they had earned through a lot of fighting. And so they prevented the league leaders from closing the gap to 13 points – but slipped to fifth place in the table due to the late equalizer.

BVB had devised a pretty underdog tactic against the league leaders: standing deep, counter-attacking, long balls, man-to-man marking against Bayer’s creative players Florian Wirtz and Jonas Hofmann, as well as time-wasting and the odd nick. As a result, they managed to equalize Bayer’s dreaded tempo for long periods of the game.

And it suited the visitors very well that the first of a few constructive attacks up front was successful: Sabitzer artistically passed the ball to Füllkrug with his heel, who defended the ball strongly with his back to goal and laid it off to the onrushing Julian Ryerson – who shot in safely from close range (5′).

“Scores” src=“https://forecasting-sports.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Screenshot-2023-12-04-191733.png” width=“506” height=“601” /☻

This did little to change the static nature of the game, which continued to be dominated by Leverkusen, who were initially dangerous from long-range shots: Exequiel Palacios (7th) and Granit Xhaka (14th) shot too centrally, however, and there was a huge cheer in the stadium for Xhaka’s second attempt, but the ball was a touch wide of the wrong side of the post (21st).

The hosts rarely posed a threat in the penalty area because central defenders Mats Hummels and Nico Schlotterbeck defended so well, while Emre Can and Marcel Sabitzer defended so deep that the back four often became a back six. In their own possession, however, Dortmund were too sloppy and rarely managed to play around the league leaders’ intense pressing. Leverkusen, on the other hand, impressed with their combinations in confined spaces, but occasionally got lost in their passing sequences instead of looking for the finish.

And yet they continued to come closer: Wirtz lifted the ball nicely over the onrushing Hummels in the penalty area, but then failed to get the ball to the onrushing Hofmann (24′). Jonathan Tah then made an air pocket at the far post after a corner (27). Alejandro Grimaldo’s free-kick from 25 meters was saved by Gregor Kobel (31). And when Leverkusen did manage to cheer when a cross found its way to Wirtz, who finished with a superb finish, the video assistant came to Dortmund’s rescue: striker Victor Boniface had been very slightly offside when the goal was scored (45.+1).