A perfect Champions League storm.
A young team. An undisciplined captain. A ruthless, gifted opponent.
Those were the elements within one of the most humbling results Bayer Leverkusen have ever suffered. Paris Saint-Germain beat them 7-2 at the BayArena on Tuesday night, demonstrating how merciless an environment European football can be at the highest level.
PSG scored four goals from four shots on target in the first half, each of them a masterpiece. By full-time, at the end of a second half full of blunders and chaos, played in a stadium shocked almost to silence and which started emptying well before the end, Leverkusen had conceded seven times at home for the first time in their European history. They scored a penalty, missed another, and midfielder Aleix Garcia may even have produced the goal of the game, firing into the top corner from 30 yards.
None of that mattered. This was as lopsided a game as the Champions League will produce this season. Among the Leverkusen culprits, goalkeeper Mark Flekken had another difficult evening, extending a stretch of bad form. Two of the goals he conceded should have been saved. Robert Andrich, appointed captain this season, was sent off after 33 minutes for throwing a careless elbow on Desire Doue.
PSG were themselves reduced to 10 later in the first half after Illia Zabarnyi was red-carded for a professional foul. It made little difference. This was the second time in five weeks that Andrich has left his team-mates short-handed as a result of ill discipline. The first time, against Eintracht Frankfurt, he got away it and Leverkusen still won. This time, he did not. The players left on the pitch — among them four starters aged 23 or under — were left vulnerable and carved apart.
Bayer Leverkusen’s Claudio Echeverri looks bemused as Paris Saint-Germain celebrate yet another goal (Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images)
They conceded three times in six minutes at the end of the first half. PSG were full of life and craft and quality; every bit a European champion. Doue. Nuno Mendes. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
But Leverkusen were sloppy and naive, plagued by mis-kicks in their own penalty box and glaring tactical imbalances that seemed to leave them exposed any time they lost the ball.
After, Kasper Hjulmand, the head coach, apologised to the supporters. “We’re feeling great pain,” he admitted. We’re wounded.”
Hjulmand seemed as shocked as he did hurt. The players who passed through the mixed zone looked bruised. This was another odd night in what has been a highly unusual Leverkusen season.
It has been almost three months since Erik ten Hag was sacked after just three competitive games. That was a humiliation for the Dutchman but a public disaster for the club, who saw their Xabi Alonso succession plan fall apart in a way that reflected poorly on everyone involved.
Plan A was a quick failure. Until Tuesday, Plan B had been going significantly better.
Hjulmand, 53, is the former Danish national team boss, with a reputation as a players’ coach who can extract and develop talent. He took over in early September and had not lost a game until running into PSG.
Paris Saint-Germain’s players celebrate at the BayArena (Alex Grimm/Getty Images)
True, Hjulmand’s progress has been steady rather than spectacular, and his four wins and three draws featured too many goals conceded and just a single clean sheet, teasing a vulnerability, but he is calm and respected, and had certainly changed the mood.
Where this leaves him is difficult to know, because Leverkusen have been so heavily depleted. Florian Wirtz, Piero Hincapie, Jeremie Frimpong and Granit Xhaka were all sold in the summer, of course, and Jonathan Tah and Lukas Hradecky left, too. This team has been stripped of its class, but also its personality.
That showed on Tuesday. There was technical inequity between the two sides, clearly, but Leverkusen looked so lost. They were emotionally decimated by that quick trio of goals before half-time and spent the rest of the game in a half-embarrassed, half-confused daze, desperate for the game to end.
Hjulmand’s job now is not just to rebuild this team’s technical profile and identity, but also to cultivate new social structures and leadership hierarchies. Hradecky was the club captain, and Tah and Xhaka both hugely significant dressing room figures who had a special importance at a club which, because of their recruiting model, depend so often on younger, less experienced players.
This summer, Loic Bade (25), Jarell Quansah (22), Equi Fernandez (23) and Malik Tillman (23) were signed for big fees and to be immediate starters. Christian Kofane (19), Ernest Poku (21) and Ibrahim Maza (19) were recruited for their potential, as was Eliesse Ben Seghir (20). Those are talented players. In time, all could represent clever investments, but that is not a given; high potential players need stability around them.
Bayer Leverkusen’s players try to put a brave face on things (Pau Barrena/Getty Images)
Reinforcement are on their way. Neither Quansah nor Tillman were available on Tuesday; both missed the game due to injury. Patrik Schick, their senior centre-forward, was not available either, but should be training again within days. Lucas Vazquez should also return soon. Optimistically, perhaps those who did face PSG will remember the adversity of the night, and use it to harden them for the future. Perhaps, but players are fragile and teams are sensitive, and this was the kind of result that can destroy both.
The media will not be kind and these wounds will not heal easily. Twenty-four hours ago, Hjulmand had an unbeaten record and a team with a growing chemistry and developing belief. That has all been shattered and there is no longer much virtue in simply “not being Erik ten Hag”.
Hjulmand’s Bayer Leverkusen face Freiburg on Sunday and Bayern Munich in two weeks. There is an awful lot of work to do to pick up the many pieces.
