Leverkusen run out of luck

By Marcus Christenson

It was the night when Bayer 04 Leverkusen coach Klaus Augenthaler hoped his makeshift defence would show their resilience and cope with a Liverpool FC side coming to the BayArena looking for a draw. In the end, however, the English side produced a tactically superior performance to reach the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals with room to spare.

Home wins
Leverkusen may have defeated Real Madrid CF 3-0, AS Roma 3-1 and FC Dynamo Kyiv 3-0 at home in this season, but their luck ran out when they really needed to win. They were simply missing too many of their best defenders to keep a lively Liverpool in shackles. In fact, events leading up to this game, which Liverpool in the end won thanks to two goals from Luis García and one from Milan Baroš, were just as damaging to Augenthaler’s side as the events on the field.

Unfamiliar faces
First, Jens Nowotny suffered a cruciate knee ligament injury a few days before the first leg and on Sunday Juan ruptured ankle ligaments in the Bundesliga game against VfB Stuttgart. With Roque Junior also missing because of a knee injury, Augenthaler was forced to play an unfamiliar backline.

New roles
In hindsight, Augenthaler may rue his decision to play Carsten Ramelow, who can also play at centre-half, in his usual holding role in midfield. Instead, left-back Diego Placente and 20-year-old Jan-Ingwer Callsen-Bracker, who was making only his second Champions League start, were asked to play in central defence.

Lively Baroš
It did not work. Baroš may have played on his own up front but he was supported by two attacking midfield players in Steven Gerrard and Luis García and they took turns in supplying the tireless Czech with incisive passes. In fact, Liverpool could have gone in front after four minutes had Baroš hit his shot cleanly.

Babic bamboozled
Bernd Schneider was playing at right-back in what often looked like a three-man defence as Marko Babic, playing somewhere between defence and midfield on the left-hand side, was constantly overrun by Baroš, Gerrard and Luis García.

Penalty appeal
It was clear from the start that this had been Liverpool manager Rafael Benítez’s plan and it worked perfectly. Liverpool felt that they should have had a penalty after 12 minutes when it looked as if Baroš had been brought down by Callsen-Bracker after cutting in from the left.

Set-piece dangers
When two first-half goals finally came, they originated from the left-hand side - both stemming from set-pieces. For the first, after 28 minutes, there was no Leverkusen player in sight as Dietmar Hamann picked up a clearance following a corner and set up Gerrard to cross for Luis García to score.

Midfield domination
Four minutes later, Gerrard’s corner was met by Igor Bišcan and steered in by Luis García and the tie was practically over. Particularly disappointing for Augenthaler must have been seeing his gamble to play Ramelow in midfield backfire. It was the guests who completely dominated the area, Gerrard, Hamann and Bišcan giving Leverkusen neither space nor time.

Sweet revenge
For that trio, plus John Arne Riise, Jerzy Dudek, Jamie Carragher and substitute Vladimír Šmicer – who were all part of the Liverpool team which were eliminated here three years ago – the success was particularly sweet.

Depleted Leverkusen
Leverkusen, however, will feel that they were not given a chance to repeat the heroics of that 4-2 win, injury depriving them of their three best central defenders while suspensions ruled out midfield players Robson Ponté and Paul Freier. Now only the post mortem remains of their European season.