2–3 in Elversberg – A Bundesliga Start That Could Hardly Have Gone Worse

You can start a new Bundesliga season away to a promoted side and expect certain things: an excited home crowd, a tight stadium, opponents flying into every challenge as if the entire history of the club depends on it. All of that is normal. What Bayer 04 probably should not do is find themselves 2–0 down after ten minutes while looking as though nobody had mentioned that the league season had actually started. That is exactly what happened in Elversberg. We eventually lost 3–2, despite late goals from Patrik Schick and Christian Kofane giving us a brief flicker of hope. And while I normally try not to turn every defeat into the beginning of the apocalypse, this opening-day performance worries me far more than any lost pre-season friendly. 

Carles Martínez made only one change from the comfortable 4–0 cup win in Wiesbaden, with Mark Flekken replacing Janis Blaswich in goal. So, on paper at least, there was continuity. On the pitch, there was very little of it. Elversberg started with aggression, speed and exactly the kind of intensity I had expected from Bayer. Lukas Petkov made it 1–0 after eight minutes and just two minutes later Cole Campbell added a second, helped considerably by a dreadful misplaced pass from new captain Edmond Tapsoba. After a quarter of an hour, it could easily have been 3–0. Flekken and his team-mates prevented things from getting even worse. When the best thing you can say after 15 minutes is that you are only two goals behind, something has gone very badly wrong. 

What bothered me most was not simply the scoreline, but the manner of it. Elversberg were sharper, braver and quicker in almost every action. Bayer needed what felt like 20 minutes just to understand what sort of match they were playing. Of course a promoted side is allowed to start with energy. Of course you can concede an early goal. But when the supposed favourite barely features in the opening exchanges while the Bundesliga newcomers create chance after chance, it is no longer just a slow start. It is a proper warning sign. Bayer eventually improved. Loïc Badé headed narrowly wide and Aleix Garcia hit the crossbar with a deflected free-kick. But at half-time we were still 2–0 down, and in truth even that scoreline felt rather generous.

Anyone hoping Martínez would wake the team up during the interval had exactly 25 seconds to enjoy that thought. Then it was 3–0. David Mokwa got in front of Badé and finished from close range, and at that point even the most optimistic Bayer supporter probably had to check whether this really was matchday one or some particularly unpleasant dream. Martínez had surprisingly sent the same team back out after the break and only reacted with a triple substitution after the third goal. Even then, the changes had little immediate impact. Bayer saw more of the ball, but against a compact Elversberg defence there was not enough invention, precision or urgency to create serious danger. 

Then, finally, something changed. Schick produced a technically excellent finish in the 77th minute to make it 3–1. Suddenly Bayer played with more speed and conviction. In stoppage time, Kofane added a second after Boniface had hit the bar, and one minute later Jonas Hofmann nearly equalised, only to be denied by goalkeeper Nicolas Kristof. The fact that Bayer came so close to rescuing a point from 3–0 down at least shows that the team did not completely give up. But I am not going to turn that into some heroic comeback story. If you only begin playing proper Bundesliga football in the final quarter of an hour, then you have already made far too many mistakes. The late rally was encouraging, but it cannot be allowed to hide the first 75 minutes. 

That is why I do not want to brush this defeat aside with the usual line about there being 34 matchdays in a season. Of course there are. One 3–2 defeat in Elversberg will not decide the next nine months. But opening day still tells you something, and right now Bayer lack stability, composure and, above all, defensive reliability. We had already seen in pre-season that this team can dominate possession without creating enough danger. In Elversberg, we added another problem: for long periods we had no control at all without the ball. That is an uncomfortable combination. If you need time to become dangerous in attack, you cannot simultaneously hand out presents at the back.

Martínez therefore faces his first proper test much earlier than he would have liked. Union Berlin are next in the first home game of the season. I do not need some tactical revolution. I would settle for something much simpler: a Bayer side that is switched on from the first whistle, competes in every challenge, treats the opponent seriously and does not wait until three goals have gone in before remembering that Bundesliga points are actually being awarded. 

I am not going to write off the season after one defeat. I have supported Bayer far too long for that, and probably suffered enough along the way as well. But I am not going to dress this up either. A promoted side is allowed to beat us. What should not happen is that they outplay us for an hour and make it look as though they are the experienced Bundesliga team while we are the nervous newcomers.

The season is only 90 minutes old. Good.

Because after those 90 minutes, there is already plenty to fix.