Savior Patrik Schick! He jumped in as a joker and thus averted Leverkusen’s first defeat of the season in the setup

Bayer Leverkusen are having a fantastic season, but the first leg of the Europa League semi-final did not go as Xabi Alonso’s charges expected. The German club’s first defeat of the season was averted by joker Patrik Schick.

Dominating the Bundesliga is not enough for Leverkusen. Xabi Alonso’s charges have only the highest ambitions this season and want to confirm them in Europe. On Thursday, they played Karabakh on neutral ground in the Europa League.

The predictions were more or less clear. Playing Karabakh is never easy, they are an unpredictable team and have plenty of interesting foreigners in their squad, but Bayer were the favourites and were expected to confirm this role.

But the opposite was true. Although Adam Hložek and Matěj Kovář were in the starting line-up, Karabakh were already leading 2:0 at half-time. Brazilian Juninho was in the lead role, scoring one goal and setting up the other.

Yassine Benzia, a former great talent of French football and now the Algerian representative, who was brought up by Olympique Lyon, also made his way into the German club’s net.

Patrik Schick saves Leverkusen

Karabakh were the better team in the first half. That’s why Xabi Alonso made several changes to the lineup. During the second act, for example, he took Adam Hložek off the field and replaced him with Florian Wirtz. This proved to be one of the key moves.

The German talent reduced the score to 2-1 after twelve minutes on the pitch. It was the 70th minute. Ten minutes later, Czech striker Patrik Schick also took the field and became the main hero.

For a long time, Leverkusen could not break through the Karabakh defence. It was only in stoppage time that the Czech striker was able to do it.

Patrik Schick sent the ball into the net in the second minute of stoppage time after a centre from Robert Andrich to level the game at 2-2.

In any case, Xabi Alonso has a lot to think about before the return leg. In any case, Patrik Schick’s goal means he has more space on the pitch. It was his seventh goal this season.

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Source: UEFA, Transfermarkt, Twitter