Peter Bosz’s Bayer Leverkusen visit Leipzig today, hoping to further their Champions League push against the team three points ahead of them.
Leverkusen sit third, having faltered after storming to the top of the table shortly before the curtailed winter break. Leverkusen scored 36 goals in 11 swashbuckling Bundesliga and Europa League games from the start of November. But with their confidence punctured by a deflected Robert Lewandowski strike in the final seconds of their footballing 2020, Leverkusen have stuttered since the New Year – an excellent win against Dortmund their only win in five games.
The Werkself, though, remain a side on the up – and under Bosz’s careful tutelage, their attacking gems glitter.
One of these is the Jamaican Leon Bailey, who delivered a series of outstanding performances in December’s pre-Christmas rush. A mercurial talent who has disappeared at times in recent seasons, Bailey has electric pace and a wonderful left foot. The undoubted highlight of his December purple patch was his strike against Hoffenheim, arguably the best goal of the season so far. After playing a corner short to Nadiem Amiri, Bailey overlapped, demanded the ball back and, with the precision of a Villas-Boas era Gareth Bale, unleashed a wonderful curling shot from the corner of the box into the top corner. In its training ground precision, the goal underlined the extent to which this Bosz team were playing smart, high-quality football to match anything that the latter day big three of Bayern, Leipzig and Dortmund can offer.
In the marketing arms race of modern European football, France’s Ligue Un last year rebranded as La Ligue des Talents. Surely few talents have emerged from Ligue Un in recent years who are plus grands than Moussa Diaby, who spent a year at PSG before moving to Leverkusen. Another left-footed wonder, the Frenchman is ferociously quick and skilful – attributes all evident in another gorgeous Leverkusen goal, his strike away at Cologne. Collecting the ball in his own half, Diaby surged forwards towards the Billy Goats’ goal, enticing defenders towards him before pirouetting past them. At times, some players – like Theo Walcott in those breathless final minutes of the 2008 Champions League quarter-final – accelerate so easily that they appear to glide across the pitch. Diaby’s effortless foray belongs in this company, and the easy left foot finish demonstrated the extent to which he appears to find life in the Bundesliga straightforward. Consistently one of Leverkusen’s outstanding performers, the 21 year-old may well be destined for more glamorous stages than the BayArena.
If Bailey and Diaby have been on a steady upward trajectory for some time, Florian Wirtz’s ascent has been steeper. Precociously thrust into the first team after the coronavirus break last term, Wirtz has already become an integral source of assists and goals from his midfield berth. The German’s fragile physique, balance and poise on the ball mirror fellow prodigy Phil Foden. Wirtz generally plays deeper than Foden, however – an authentic central midfielder capable of Lampard-like forward runs. Wirtz scored the decisive goal against Dortmund a few weeks ago and is already the highest scoring 17 year-old in Bundesliga history.
Such exciting talents need careful stewardship. It would be hard to think of many men better suited to this than Peter Bosz, who appears to be enjoying himself again, three years after his torrid spell at Dortmund. The Dutchman is no stranger to nurturing Wunderkinder, having led an Ajax side including 17 year-old Matthijs de Ligt to the 2017 Europa League final. With Wirtz and co. at his service, a similarly spectacular campaign with Leverkusen is within Bosz’s grasp.
Image: Светлана Бекетова, CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons
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