Leverkusen deserved to be eliminated in the cup semi-final against Bayern. Robert Andrich, who has a clear demand for the end of the season, knows that too.
“It was a class difference for the first 45 minutes, we’re lucky it’s only 0:1. And then I think, let’s say up to the 75th minute, if you score one, then everything is possible again. Overall, we have to be honest, Bayern were better,” Robert Andrich analyzed the 0:2 in the cup semi-final against Bayern on Sky.
In the first half, Leverkusen didn’t have the slightest chance, but Munich failed to score more goals. Bayern were also better after the break, although the Werkself did have a few moments in attack. “When you open up offensively, you do have a few spaces. Twice we had a deep ball, which only Alphonso Davies gets. That’s just the difference between these top clubs,” Andrich recalled of two important sprint duels that the Bayern full-back won. “We simply weren’t at Bayern’s level then.”
So it will definitely be a title-less year for Leverkusen. In the cup, they lost to Bayern in the semi-finals, in the Champions League in the round of 16 against Arsenal. Bayer currently occupy sixth place in the Bundesliga and are four points behind fourth place, which would mean guaranteed Champions League qualification. They are just two points off fifth place, which could possibly be enough to qualify for the top flight.
“Europa League is not our ambition”
“The fact is, we didn’t make it to the semi-finals against a better team. In the Champions League, you might be able to pull something off against Arsenal with a bit of luck. And in the Bundesliga, we’re chasing our ambitions,“ said Andrich, who made it clear: ”We still have four matches ahead of us. We have to win them all and then see whether we still have fifth place or whether we can make it to fourth place.”
In any case, it is clear that there is a lot of pressure on Leverkusen’s final spurt. On Saturday, they face 1. FC Köln in the Rhine derby. This will be followed by clashes against Leipzig (currently third), Stuttgart (currently fourth) and HSV. “As Leverkusen, we want to be in the Champions League, regardless of the upheaval. If we don’t make it in the end, it will have been a fatal season for us. Because the Europa League is not our ambition,“ said the captain, who is still hoping to jump on the World Cup bandwagon in the summer: ”I haven’t booked a vacation yet, hope dies last. I want to be there and I have something that is very good for a group.”
