Elversberg beat Bayer Leverkusen 3-2 in the first match of the Bundesliga regular season on Friday evening at the Ursarfm-Arena an der Kaiserlinde. The result puts the hosts in sixth place with three points, while Leverkusen sit twelfth after a solitary defeat. It was a match where the early exchanges set a frantic tone that neither side could quite control.
Two goals in the opening nine minutes had everyone reaching for their coats. Lukas Petkov opened the scoring for Elversberg at the eight-minute mark, then Cole Campbell responded almost immediately to level things up. The visitors looked like they might dictate proceedings from the outset.
By then the yellow cards were already flying. Maximilian Rohr collected his for Elversberg at twenty-nine minutes, Campbell followed at forty-one, and Ibrahim Maza went off the field at fifty-three. David Mokwa restored the home side's lead just after the interval, making it two-one before the substitutions began to mount up.
Three changes came through at fifty-five minutes, all from Leverkusen's bench. Loic Bade, Ignacio Fernández Carballo and Lucas Vázquez all entered as the visitors tried to steady themselves. Francis Onyeka, Campbell and Malik Tillman followed at sixty-five, and Elversberg brought on David Mokwa and Jan Gyamerah at seventy-five.
Then came Patrik Schick at seventy-seven minutes to find the net for Leverkusen, and suddenly the match was wide open again. It stayed that way until Christian Kofane struck at ninety-one minutes to complete the turnaround. Five goals, five different scorers, and a result that will keep the fans talking until the next round.
The statistics tell one story, the result another. Elversberg held just thirty-three percent possession but registered six shots on target from eight inside the penalty area. Leverkusen dominated the ball with sixty-seven percent, created six big chances and had eighteen shots on target, yet could only find the net twice. Expected goals came in at 1.27 for the hosts and 1.88 for the visitors, a gap that doesn't reflect the final score at all.
So Elversberg climb to sixth, while Leverkusen drop to twelfth with zero points to their name. The table goes out of the window in these games, but the numbers suggest the visitors had the better of things and simply couldn't finish. That's a problem they'll need to address before the next fixture.
