When it mattered most Bayer Leverkusen produced the kind of display that their fans have been crying out for all this season. There was a real danger that team that contained internationals from Brazil, Argentina, Turkey and Germany and which finished runners-up last year in the Bundesliga, the German Cup and the Champions League would be relegated. Now their destiny lies in their own hands after a 3-0 win against 1860 Munich. Lever started the match at the BayArena with their third coach of the season, with Klaus Augenthaler taking over from the recently departed Thomas Horster. If anyone can rescue Leverkusen, then Klaus can. He has carried into management his no-nonsense approach, which typified most of his playing career with Bayern Munich - where he picked up seven championship medals between 1975 and 1991. "As a player I was someone who never gave up. We have two games against opponents, which are quite do-able," he said. With those words ringing in their ears, Bayer's players produced a performance of note at a time when they needed to. Daniel Bierofka settled any early nerves with a well-taken goal in the 8th minute. Just before half-time the home fans were given another reason to celebrate when the team's Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov doubled the advantage with a headed goal. Midfielder Marko Babic sealed the win early in the second-half. The win propels them above Armina Bielefeld, who went down 3-0 away to Hansa Rostock, which leaves the fate of Lever in their own hands. What's more their opponents in that pivotal last game are Nurnberg, who lost their own battle with survival after a 2-1 defeat to Energie Cottbus. Leverkusen are now just one match away from safety, a story which has captivated most of Germany for the whole season, and one that Augenthaler is in no doubt that they can achieve: "We've done the first half of our duty. The team showed character, and I'm confident they will do that again next weekend."
There are many Nobody's who don't care, I guess... The article is too positive for me though. Lately we often had it that Bayer played pretty good at home, but on the road were not able to confess these performances. Hopes are on Augenthaler to change it, but it's no secure bet that he succeeds. And in case of a loss, Bielefeld just needs a draw against Hannover - not even in Hannover's sensational promotion season they were able to defeat Bielefeld. If Bayer can recall a normal shape, then they'll win, but there already were some "if's" too much in this sesaon to start planning for Bundesliga 2003/04 already now.
I've also been a WestHam follower for almost 20 years and I was sad to see them go down, especially in such a nail-biting way. However, I won't shed any tears at all for Bayer if they do go down. While I very much appreciated the attractive style of football they played over the last, say, 3 years or so and I most definitely have no love lost for Biele*yawn*feld, Bayer has never lost its plastic aftertaste for me (and quite probably never will). Another far more pressing reason is contained in this little selfish-but-true afterthought as seen from the point of view of my club, HSV, which also applies to about 10 other clubs in Germany: The Bundesliga only has 6 European spots: 1 for the cup winners (ie. never HSV, who are too silly to win 5 or 6 straight games against lowly opposition) 3 in the Champions League (normally Bayern, BVB and Bayer, this year Stuttgart or, given circumstances about as likely as predicting Bayer's relegation in a pre-season preview, *gasp* HSV) 2 UEFA cup (any two from Stuttgart, HSV, Werder, Hertha, in normal years Schalke, Bayer, etc. as well) Bayer will be back soon enough, even if they do go down, so the temporary disappearance of a serious rival for those coveted places in the money (= survival) zone is a cause for major joy. It might just mean that HSV can re-establish themselves as a more frequent European participant, which is what we need to survive in the medium to long term. Us and half the damn league... So, neutrals may prefer Bayer to Bielefeld (who can blame them?), but I can't be a neutral in this and neither can the supporters of many other clubs, because football is changing fast and the futures of our clubs are at stake. Sorry Bayer, nothing personal ps: wonderfully creative banner at the recent HSV-Bayer game: [ Don't worry, Bayer. In the second division, being runner-up is good enough! ]
You are pure evil. Pure! HSV's problem is for too long they had no ambition, and when they do have ambition, they don't do anything on the field. Plastic Bayer is the old days, now they have good fans who support the team. Over the past few years they have brought attacking soccer to the Bundesliga, and now other teams are catching on. Signing Brazilians, Yanks, and whoever they feel can help them. Those "Landon didn't get a chance" thoughts are BS and maybe he should have given them a chance. Maybe if he was there now, Bayer wouldn't be in this place. -- 20 years a Hammer. I'm only on 8 and I feel horrible.
Tegtmeier, we have been so good to you this season and that's how you say thank you? HSV - Bayer 3:2, 4:1 HSV - Bielefeld 1:2, 1:0 (PS: we forget about the results in the years before for the sake of my arguing ) 4.000 tickets for the game in Nuremberg were sold in Leverkusen btw. For a 160.000 city this is pretty impressive, same percentage would mean 40.000 from Hamburg to a road game, but I guess this is what they have at home, right?
No, just honest (ok, and desperate). Sadly no. HSV's problem has definitely not been a lack of ambition. Any club that has ever been to the very top will consider its rightful place to be at the summit for the rest of the earth's rotation. That is precisely part of the problem, because unless you have the personnel (both on and - crucially - off the pitch) there is no way you are going back there any time soon. Thus, HSV's problem over the last 20 years (almost to the day) has been an almost frightning lack of qualified directors, managers and club officials. Instead, they have blown $large_sum on mediocre players and inflated wages. It sucks. But it's getting better and at least they have the new stadium built and proving a nice little earner. Yeah well, I've seen it before, they'll be back, don't you worry.
No, our way of saying thank you is by giving you that wonderfully skilled defending stalwart Ingo "Suppeninge" Hertzsch if you stay up. May he do as well for you as he did for us... Oh get real. That has to be the most desperate and ridiculous attempt to pass off the pill boyZ from Leverkusen as "just a regular, well-supported club" that I've seen in a while. If you want to find out about truly well-supported clubs, ask the fans of Kaiserslautern or Mönchengladbach or St.Pauli. Those people live and breathe their club in any division and you can bet your bottom euro in a game like this there would be 20-40.000 fans on the road and not 4. I mean please... Your assumptions are off in many other ways too. For a start not everyone in a bigger city is automatically a fan of its biggest club, in fact (wait for this) some cities have more than one club, so support is shared among them in some form or other. Likewise, not everyone in Leverkusen is likely to be a Bayer fan (I'd guess many are Köln fans) and not every Bayer fan is from Leverkusen. At the end of the day, you are telling me that 4000 away tickets sold for a crucial relegation match is proof of Leverkusen's cult status and that, my friend, is utter bs. There were 8000 HSV fans at Bochum-HSV on the weekend and they didn't just rattle their prawn-sandwiches but they out-sang and out-cheered the Bochum fans throughout the 90 mins (and they were supporting a team so horribly inept on the road that they only won at Bayer and Nürnberg this season). There are 60.000 Celtic fans in Seville tonight for the UEFA cup final. If St.Pauli had a half-decent stadium they would have as many fans in the Regionalliga than Leverkusen have in the Bundesliga and that is not because Hamburg is bigger than Leverkusen but because they have something you can't buy with all the pillmoney in the world: Soul. I mean really, let's all praise Bayer for playing some great football over the last 3 years, but let's not kid ourselves here...
That is too generous. Really, when I hear that Hertzsch, Jarolim and Jones (latter one maybe as expensive transfer instead of free agent one year later) would come in case of staying in the Bundesliga, then I almost think it's better to relegate As for the rest of your arguing: I know that the comparison is not valid. I didn't mean it like that (two smilies limit ). I just wanted to show that Leverkusen doesn't have such a bad attendance as it is always reported. And we don't have to talk about certain kinds of fans as you can explain the fan base of every club pretty easy and all are different (e.g. Gladbach has the fans that were young in their prime in the late 70s and don't recruit a lot today; and we don't have to talk about the background of St Pauli supporters). Just that much: Leverkusen naturally has a pretty young fan base in the sense of their late development from more or less the mid 90s. I became a fan in the early 90s where it more or less was a risk to wear a Bayer jersey in public; today you'll find many throughout whole Germany wearing Bayer fan stuff. In the last years Bayern, Dortmund, Schalke and Leverkusen were the clubs recruiting most fans outside of their region. Never did I state that Leverkusen has a cult status and I am everything but sad that they don't have it. All I claim that there is a fanbase that is underestimated. When I first attended a game in Leverkusen, I had a local press article in mind that drew a 'horror scenario' (for them) that one day a club like Leverkusen - without atmosphere or fans - could become champion. In the stadium it took me seconds to realise that this journalist has never been in the stadium. If you don't believe it, just remember RTL. Their reporters have never covered Bundesliga and then they had Leverkusen in the Champions League. Numerous times the announcers, who haven't been in Leverkusen before, said that the fans and the atmosphere in the stadium are absolutely on Champions League level. The fanbase definitely is different from other clubs. As they recruited most of them over the last years, their fans are more modern and not the traditional road fans, but rather people, who love to see a good game and enjoy what is offered to them. If you want it that way, it is more like in US stadiums, but that's definitely how the future will look like also in other stadiums.
Nice debate going on here. I think Olaf has a great point with the fans of Bayer. Maybe not as passionate, but when I was watching them a few weeks ago on FSW they were signing the entire match.
The whole argument that Leverkusen is a plastic club without real fans or tradition is total BS. The club was founded in 1904 by employees of Bayer for chrissakes. Thus it should be no surprise that there is a close link between the company, its employees and the club. Bayer 04 is extremely important to the whole community and region. Anyone who says otherwise is simply not familiar with the situation. It’s also total BS to suggest that Bayer 04 is a corporation and Hamburg isn’t. This is professional football. Almost all clubs are corporations nowadays. You sit there in your glass “AOL” Arena throwing stones at everyone else, as if you somehow have a monopoly on tradition. Whatever. Instead of hoping Bayer goes down, you should be wishing that fate on Dortmund, who spends money like they’re in Seria A, or Bayern, who thinks the rules somehow don’t apply to them. Relegation is a miserable fate for anyone. But don’t act like Leverkusen deserves it because they somehow lack tradition.
I also like the fact that Bayer has a management team willing to take risks on American players. What's funny is my hatred of Bayern is greater than any team in the world - in any sport. They make me sick and if they were to be relegated I would have a party.
I still got this one with the red and black stripes. Actually it's the last I bought, but it's indeed looking great.
I didn't say Bayer deserve relegation, I don't even think they'll go down at all. My point was that - and a few posts further up I was unusually frank about that - as a fan of a competitor I would be *ahem* not very sad if they disappeared for a while, that's all. And this is so (I also said that, perhaps you should re-read it) precisely *because* HSV are a corporation just like Bayer Leverkusen. I therefore wish this fate on all other 17 clubs every year, never quite seems to happen though... And yes, I did say Bayer reek of plastic to me. Well, you know, I've been a fan of HSV since the mid-70s, long before they became the corporate affair they are now and long before the AOL Arena, in fact even before the Volksparkstadion, so maybe I have different ideas of tradition than you do, which is fine and dandy. It's no big deal, there are worse clubs about than Bayer 04 (really). So... simmer down you Bayer-ites, I told you it was nothing personal, I just wouldn't mind you guys out of the way for a few years while HSV fight to re-establish themselves somewhere near the top, never mind right on top of it. Take it as a compliment...
Who knows, maybe they save themselves and have a couple of seasons like Real Sociedad in Spain, after struggling with relegation (not just one year, 3 in a row!) they already secure a UCL spot and their future is in their own hands since they're in the driver's seat to become champs (they're leading competition right now with 4 fixtures to go)
NO ! Leverkusen deserves relegation, coz' they S U C K ! And this fat Calmund sucks even worse than the club he's working for !
They only hate us, because they fear our club. Our plastic fans, our plastic players, our giant Calmund, who could eat all of HSV in one sitting. If we don't go down, we will reload and watch out, it won't be pretty for the pretenders. -- Who do you hate more? Bayer Leverkusen or Bayern Munich