In the second half there wasn’t as much going on at the Freiburg sports club, the radio reporter announced in an interview with Lucas Höler, presenting the 31-year-old professional with a fait accompli. Höler knew that an objection would not only have been pointless, but almost immoral. “Yes,” he replied with all due brevity. The fact that Freiburg escaped with a 0-2 defeat at Bayer Leverkusen was a merciful expression of their inferiority.
Since 2018, Höler has been an attacker at SC Freiburg, even a center forward, but no one has ever called him a goalscorer. 42 goals in 239 appearances show that he has other qualities. And these skills were also in demand on Sunday afternoon, when striker Igor Matanovic, who was expensively acquired in the summer, remained on the bench once again, while Höler was supposed to drive Freiburg’s offensive forward behind striker Junior Adamu. Adamu is certainly not known as a goal factory, but like Höler, he is valued as an excellent defender in the front line. But this time the Freiburg team didn’t manage to play their usual awkward game. Bayer Leverkusen needed a quarter of an hour’s run-up before the team emancipated itself from the opponent’s constraints and their inner oppressions. After all, it was “not easy to deal with such a defeat with seven stalls,” as Bayer professional Jonas Hofmann pointed out, remembering the 7-2 defeat four days earlier in the Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain.
Hofmann? That Jonas Hofmann, whom the club did not register for the Champions League in the last days of coach Erik ten Hag, who was then hastily dismissed? Whom Xabi Alonso had permanently and mercilessly put in the reserves the previous year? Jonas Hofmann, 33, is now in demand again in Leverkusen. Kasper Hjulmand, ten Hag’s successor, “gave him the feeling that he needed me,” reported Hofmann beaming with joy on Sunday. The coach immediately understood that the collection of talent that Bayer had acquired in the summer absolutely needed a few experienced trackers at their side.
He’s a Spanish gambler, if you let him go he’ll show you what he’s made of.
Leverkusen’s Jonas Hofmann about teammate Aleix García
Aleix García, 28, and Alejandro Grimaldo, 30, have also been given new and important roles. The two Spaniards had been more followers than designers in the previous season: Grimaldo – although still a regular player – often seemed a little listless; García fell short of expectations even more often and was on the verge of a move to England in the summer. On Sunday, the two were the origin and center of Leverkusen’s game; they were the dominant people on the pitch. Grimaldo ran constantly and everywhere through the screen, occupying so many positions that he sometimes seemed to be a winger, attacker and playmaker all at the same time.
However, the real central power at Bayer 04 was clearly García, who filled Granit Xhaka’s playmaker role profile a little more in every match. Albeit with different means than the Swiss who ran away to FC Sunderland. “He’s a Spanish gambler, and if you let him go, he’ll show you what he’s capable of,” praised Hofmann and concluded from García: It’s all a question of the trust that a player receives from the coach.
Aleix García has been in the starting line-up every time Hjulmand has formed his team. “He sees the whole pitch,” says the coach about the Spanish passer, who is helping Bayer Leverkusen to recreate the successful style of previous years. Hjulmand recognizes this as a two-way process: “Players can show their identity if the team structure is right,” he says. The fact that Bayer was making progress made SC Freiburg look like a team that didn’t have much going on that day.