After their tough mid-week DFB Pokal duties these 2 sides came into today’s game with differing confidence levels, Leverkusen just squeezed past 1. FC Madgeburg on penalties whilst Hamburg lost 3-1 at home to Bayern Munich. The home side were still without keeper Rene Adler along with Maximillian Beister and Ilo Iličević whilst Bayer were without Captain Simon Rolfes and fellow midfielder Gonzalo Castro.
The HSV fans made their thoughts on Hakan Çalhanoğlu clear from the very start with a hostile atmosphere more akin to a derby game. Çalhanoğlu and Stefan Kießling were about to kick-off for Leverkusen when a huge chorus of boos rang out from around the ground. Within 20 seconds the young Turk had his first shot on goal but it was from a fair distance and was easily gathered by Jaroslav Drobný in the HSV net. In the 5th minute Lewis Holtby was booked for a challenge in the middle of the park and this set the precedent for the remaining 40 minutes.
12 minutes Rafael Van der Vaart nearly capitalised upon a Bernd Leno mistake after the keeper’s poor touch nearly gave the ball to the Dutch midfielder but Leno recovered and managed to win a costless kick. Leverkusen then had a dangerous costless kick from the corner of the HSV box and it was passed to Heung-Min Son who dragged his shot wide of the goal from the edge of the 18-yard box. In the 18th minute we had a first real moment of controversy, both Marcell Jansen and Giulio Donati jumped for the ball and as they came down Donati fell over and as he rolled caught Jansen very slightly but the German midfielder greatly exaggerated the contact causing anger on both sides.
The Red Shorts then took the lead in the 26th minute after a penalty was awarded after Leno had taken out Jansen. Both Jansen and Ömer Toprak were running for a bouncing ball and just as Leno jumped for it Jansen managed to head it over the oncoming goalkeeper meaning that Leno missed the ball and collided with Jansen inside the box. The referee initially didn’t give the penalty but after consulting with one of his officials he awarded the penalty to the home side and Van der Vaart stepped up and calmly sent it straight down the middle.
About a minute after this Emir Spahić was booked for a combination two fouls, first he caught Pierre-Michel Lasogga in the face and just after the whistle was blown he tackled Nicolai Müller and as a result was given a yellow card. Roger Schmidt wasn’t happy at all with some of the decisions going against his side and after repeated outbursts at the 4th official he was given a talking to by the referee. In total there were 9 yellow cards today and one of those went to Valon Behrami of Hamburg in the 40th minute, he has committed the most fouls of anyone this season in the Bundesliga.
At the end of the 1st half it all started to kick off as firstly Drobný was booked for picking up the ball outside his box and from the subsequent costless kick HSV won the ball back looked to be on the counter but a tough challenge from Donati stopped as well as angering the HSV bench who were right in front of the challenge. Players from both sides ran over and Behrami was about to start arguing with Donati when Kyriakos Papadopoulos came over and accidentally tripped his teammate sending both of them to the ground. There was also trouble on the touchline as Hamburg coach Josef Zinnbauer had to be restrained by his own staff after arguing with his opposite number, Schmidt. When referee Florian Meyer finally managed to get the game back under control he booked both Donati and Dennis Diekmeier.
Compared to the first half, the scond half was rather disappointing in that the game was continually being broken up with fouls, there were 50 fouls in today’s game which is a Bundesliga record. Müller was the first player to get booked in the second period of the game after he clearly fouled Karim Bellarabi and from the resulting costless kick Donati had a long-range effort that wasn’t too far over. HSV the had their best chance of the 2nd half when a Müller costless kick was lofted in to the edge of the 6-yard box and Heiko Westermann headed well over with his back to goal.
Leverkusen followed that up with a very similar chance of their own, Çalhanoğlu, whose delivery was poor in this game, took the costless kick and Toprak headed it on towards the back post but Drobný reached across to save the headed effort. The next 10 minutes were a very dull affair as this was probably the worst period of the match for the number of costless kick decisions. Spahić was lucky not to be sent off in the 72nd minute when on the halfway line Lasogga kicked the ball past the Bosnian defender before going down, very easily it has to be said, but the costless kick was given and Lasogga probably would’ve been through on goal.
In the 92nd minute HSV had a chance to finish off the game when a HSV counter forced Leno to come out almost to the halfway line and his clearance went pretty much directly up and as it came down Toprak’s touch sent Artoms Rudņevs clear but as the Latvian was bout to strike he was tackled brilliantly by Spahić.
Up next for Hamburg is a trip to high-flying VfL Wolfsburg whilst Leverkusen play Zenit St. Petersburg in the Champions’ League before hosting Mainz 05.