Patrik Schick!!!

Some football nights make you leave the BayArena wondering whether you really just watched Bayer 04 or whether someone secretly switched on Champions League mode. This 4-1 win over Leipzig was one of those nights. Not because everything is suddenly perfect again — we are Leverkusen fans, after all; we can mistrust even a 3-0 lead with professional precision — but because this team understood the moment.

Fourth place. Champions League within reach. Two games left. That is not a comfort zone, that is a tightrope walk wearing a Werkself badge. And that is exactly why this win mattered so much: not just because of the three points, but because of the way Bayer got them. This did not look like a team hoping to sneak through somehow. It looked like one ready to kick down the door to Europe’s top table.

Leipzig arrived with five straight wins and left looking at times like confused visitors searching politely for the BayArena exit. Bayer were dominant, aggressive, sharp in possession and hungry without the ball. The pressing had bite, the passing had purpose, and the stadium finally had the kind of energy that makes opponents remember Leverkusen is not just a handy stop between Cologne and Düsseldorf.

Patrik Schick, of course, was the man of the evening. Three goals, 103 competitive goals for Bayer, and currently hotter than the sausage counter at half-time. When Schick plays like this, penalty-box football suddenly looks like a noble art again rather than an unsolved scientific project. Even better: he is not just finishing chances, he is leading. That matters now. Bayer need clear heads, cold finishes and a touch of Czech demolition equipment.

Tella, Garcia, Maza and Palacios also showed that this team can be more than pretty passing followed by the occasional mysterious power cut. There was structure, tempo and aggression. This was one of those performances that makes you believe — which, for a Bayer fan, is always both beautiful and mildly dangerous.

Still, nobody should start polishing the Champions League anthem playlist just yet. Stuttgart will not be a sightseeing trip. It is the next final. Anyone who wants to play Champions League football has to show up there with the same courage, hunger and control. Leipzig was a statement. Now Bayer have to turn it into an application.