"If You're Gonna Lose, Lose Big" – A Rough Day Against Bremen

There are losses that hurt. And then there are losses that make you wonder if you've accidentally slipped into an alternate universe. The 0-2 defeat against Werder Bremen was one of those. Not because Bremen outplayed us—no, it was more like one of those games where absolutely nothing seems to go right. A rough day, as they say. Or, in Xabi Alonso’s words: “A game we want to forget as soon as possible.”

But forget? That’s tough. Because how often have we experienced this feeling this season? Exactly—twice. And when a defeat feels like a power outage in football paradise, it says a lot about how incredible this season has been so far.

Everything started as expected: Leverkusen with possession, with control—but unfortunately, also with an early shock. After just seven minutes, it was 0-1 because Romano Schmid decided that a Bremen lead would spice up the Bundesliga title race. After that? An offside goal for Bremen, a crossbar hit from Aleix Garcia, plenty of attempts, but no breakthrough.

At halftime, there was still hope: Alonso brought on Wirtz, Palacios, and Mukiele to turn things around. But Wirtz had to leave the pitch just 15 minutes later after a rough tackle—because apparently, the football gods had decided that things weren’t bad enough yet. Even after that, Bayer 04 kept pushing forward, but the ball simply refused to go in. And just when we were hoping for a last-minute equalizer, Bremen’s Justin Njinmah sealed the deal in stoppage time—0-2, game over.

Looking at the stats, it gets even more frustrating: 73% possession for Leverkusen, 18 shots to 11—this is the kind of match you win nine times out of ten. But this time, it was the one out of ten that just wasn’t meant to be. Or as kicker put it: "Struggling Bremen win an emotional battle." Emotions, yes. But the wrong ones.

And now? Now it’s Champions League time against Bayern Munich on Tuesday. Talk about a contrast: first Bremen, now the ultimate showdown against the record champions. Maybe that’s a good thing—because if there’s one thing this team has proven under Alonso, it’s that they know how to respond.

So, time to shake it off and move on. And please, let’s not forget—we’re still having one hell of a season. Because if the biggest problem of the year is that we’ve lost twice, then we must be doing something very, very right.