“We played almost perfectly,” reflected Xabi Alonso with, as per usual, not so much as a hint of grandstanding, and it was impossible to disagree. Bayer Leverkusen left the field after Saturday’s Topspiel with plenty of respect, and admiration for their continued excellence. They also left the arena with the feeling that for all their accomplishment, there is every chance the Bundesliga title is going back south to its perpetual home at Bayern Munich.
The gap at the top remains at eight points and while a league season should never be distilled to the contents of one game what we took from this was so persuasive, so emphatic without the knockout blow actually being delivered, that the only feeling a neutral could take away was one of incredulity. Since Bundesliga statistics have been recorded never have a Bayern team been so mute. They had no shots on target and the two efforts they did have were not especially notable; a blocked Harry Kane shot and a tame header from the substitute Leon Goretzka that went well wide.
On the other side of the fence, the tide was relentless. Jeremie Frimpong and Nathan Tella both hit the crossbar in the first half and Tella again had chances after the break. As the finish line approached the best player on the park, Florian Wirtz, screwed a gilt-edged chance wide to the astonishment of everyone inside the BayArena, including Wirtz himself. Rarely has a goalless scoreline so inadequately described a game because make no mistake, this was one-way traffic. At times it felt like an attack-v-defence training exercise, with the defence not allowed to leave their half.
If Leverkusen do fail to retain their crown then it won’t be because of their inability to top off this performance with a goal but because of what Alonso described as “some shitty draws we had” against Holstein Kiel, Bochum and Werder Bremen, where points were casually allowed to slip before Christmas. Frimpong and Tella spoke of there being scope to turn it around – there are 12 games to play (“still a long way to go,” said the latter) – but they know they need snookers. The result was, as Alonso put it: “Not enough [in terms of] the table but the feeling in the stadium is OK.”
That Bayern chose to play like this – Thomas Müller spoke about how frustrating Leverkusen had been a plan his team had worked on for weeks – was the ultimate compliment, if also a reality of the leaders having had a taxing midweek Champions League tie at Celtic, while Die Werkself had enjoyed a rare week off. If Vincent Kompany and his charges enjoyed a bit of luck here and there, it felt deserved for their doggedness and commitment. Of all the new elements we might have expected from the Belgian taking charge, largely eradicating the defensive gremlins that have undercut his recent predecessors was maybe not one of them.
Bayern and Kompany learned from last year’s corresponding fixture at almost the exact same stage. The entry point was different, with Leverkusen coming into the game last February leading Bayern by five points rather than trailing by eight. We should also avoid retrospectively claiming that they intended to cede possession to the hosts (Leverkusen had 56% here opposed to 39% in their 3-0 win in 2024). Alonso’s men pressed and pushed, hassled and harried – on the very borders of illegality in their treatment of Jamal Musiala – and leaving both Patrik Schick and Victor Boniface on the bench was a choice in this direction.
Yet Bayern’s ability to cope was really something. It is hard to remember a game in which they were dominated like this, yet Manuel Neuer was hardly overworked. “We trained defending our box,” the goalkeeper said after the game, a remarkable admission for a Bayern player. The numbers bear out the change in attitude and application. Thomas Tuchel’s Bayern leaked 45 Bundesliga goals last season. Kompany’s have given up 19 with more than two-thirds of the campaign gone, the best in the division. The man who was pursued for a long time so he could provide the solidity in front of the backline to make it easier, João Palhinha, has made just three league starts, initially through Kompany’s choice and then through injuries. Aleksandar Pavlovic’s mobility, next to a renewed Joshua Kimmich (whose contract extension, to follow up on Musiala’s, is close), has helped, with Dayot Upamecano and Kim Min-jae increasingly good together. They were excellent here.
So the leaders got everything they came for. Apart, perhaps, from Wirtz. Bayern have made no secret that they would love to take him – Uli Hoeness, Christoph Freund and other directors have intermittently sent verbal shots of praise and desire, much as Leverkusen rotated the fouls on Musiala, who Bayern wish they could pair him with. Yet lucrative contract extensions for Alphonso Davies, Musiala (who extended to 2030), Kimmich and Neuer all at once have priced Bayern out, as well as Wirtz’s own soaring value. He showed his worth here, almost managing to chip Neuer from halfway and dominating the game before that late, heartbreaking miss. It was his second straight failure to bag an injury-time winner after last week at Wolfsburg, in which he mesmerised the home defence and having made the magic, fluffed the simple bit of putting away a straightforward chance.
Which is Leverkusen in a nutshell right now, really. Impossible to criticise, but liable to fall short in this season’s Bundesliga – not least because, this year, it’s a different Bayern.
Augsburg 0-0 RB Leipzig, Union Berlin 1-2 Mönchengladbach, Bochum 2-0 Borussia Dortmund, St Pauli 0-1 Freiburg, Stuttgart 1-2 Wolfsburg, Bayer Leverkusen 0-0 Bayern Munich, Werder Bremen 1-3 Hoffenheim, Eintracht Frankfurt 3-1 Holsten Kiel, Heidenheim 0-2 Mainz
Talking points
• Nearly title winners in 2023, Dortmund can only dream of competing at such a level these days, with the 2-0 defeat at Bochum – their usually too-small-to-be-acknowledged-as local rivals – the newest low in a season of them. Jamie Gittins, increasing liable to be sold with Champions League re-qualification becoming a shot at the moon, argued with fans after his second-half substitution on an afternoon where the BVB ultras’ patience appeared to snap. “A completely overrated, overpriced and poorly put together squad … completely insulting their own fans,” was the verdict of Bild’s Michael Makus, with Dortmund 16th in the form table over the past six matches.
• Bochum, though, deserved to celebrate wildly (as they did) after this win that lifts them level with Heidenheim in the relegation playoff spot, a huge success after a disastrous start of just three points and no wins registered before the fourth week of December. With Heidenheim losing again at home to Mainz – after a famous win away at Copenhagen in the Conference League on Thursday – and seven points adrift of fourth-bottom Hoffenheim, who won at Werder Bremen, the bottom three look increasingly stranded.
• Escape of the weekend goes to Wolfsburg, who won at Stuttgart despite not having a shot on or off target until Tiago Tomás struck a 77th-minute equaliser and Mohamed Amoura scored a later penalty. It was Stuttgart’s fourth defeat in eight weeks, form that is undermining their efforts to return to the Champions League.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bayern Munich | 22 | 46 | 55 |
| 2 | Bayer Leverkusen | 22 | 22 | 47 |
| 3 | Eintracht Frankfurt | 22 | 20 | 42 |
| 4 | RB Leipzig | 22 | 7 | 37 |
| 5 | Freiburg | 22 | -7 | 36 |
| 6 | Mainz | 22 | 11 | 35 |
| 7 | Stuttgart | 22 | 7 | 35 |
| 8 | Borussia M'gladbach | 22 | 3 | 34 |
| 9 | Wolfsburg | 22 | 9 | 33 |
| 10 | Werder Bremen | 22 | -7 | 30 |
| 11 | Borussia Dortmund | 22 | -1 | 29 |
| 12 | Augsburg | 22 | -11 | 28 |
| 13 | Union Berlin | 22 | -8 | 24 |
| 14 | St Pauli | 22 | -7 | 21 |
| 15 | Hoffenheim | 22 | -16 | 21 |
| 16 | Heidenheim | 22 | -20 | 14 |
| 17 | VfL Bochum | 22 | -25 | 14 |
| 18 | Holstein Kiel | 22 | -23 | 13 |
