Groundhog Day at the Millerntor: Another Draw, Another Deep Sigh

Sometimes it feels like Bayer 04 are stuck in their very own football version of Groundhog Day. Same story, different stadium: a decent performance, a Schick goal, and in the end… just one point. Again. This time it was St. Pauli – lovable underdogs with grit, charm, and a stadium that smells like beer and dreams. But let’s not kid ourselves: if we want to challenge at the top, we need more than polite handshakes and post-match regrets. We need wins. Dirty ones, ugly ones, lucky ones. Any kind.

And yet, it all started pretty okay. St. Pauli came out flying like it was their Champions League final, pressing high, chasing every ball like it owed them money. Our Werkself? A bit slow out the gate, like someone hitting snooze on a Sunday morning. But then, boom – Patrik Schick rose up like a majestic Czech eagle and nodded in his 18th goal of the season. That man scores headers like it’s a party trick. At that point, it felt like this was going to be that kind of game: get the lead, manage the chaos, bring home the three points.

But football, like German weather or Wi-Fi on a Deutsche Bahn train, is rarely that cooperative.

The longer the game went on, the more you could sense that something weird was in the air. Not full-blown disaster – just that lingering feeling that we’d somehow let it slip. And sure enough, after a brief scare with a disallowed goal, St. Pauli found their equalizer. A scrappy tap-in, the kind that smells of second balls and half-hearted clearances. Suddenly, 1:1. Cue collective groan from the traveling Leverkusen fans, many of whom were probably already eyeing currywurst and celebratory beers.

And that’s the thing – it’s not that Bayer played badly. It’s just that this wasn’t enough. Not for a team chasing the title. Not for a team that had already dropped too many points against teams we should be beating. Sure, 32 away matches unbeaten is a hell of a stat. But if most of them are draws, it starts feeling like getting a B+ on every exam and still not making honor roll. Respectable? Yes. Satisfying? Not really.

Xabi Alonso looked more thoughtful than furious post-match. He knows this wasn’t the performance of champions. He said all the right things – focus on improvement, season’s not over, yada yada – but let’s be honest: his team has lost some of that killer edge. Schick is scoring for fun, Wirtz is buzzing again, Frimpong is sprinting like a man late for his wedding. But something’s missing. That little spark, the ruthlessness, the belief that every opponent should be steamrolled, not shared points with.

So what did we learn from this rainy night in Hamburg? That St. Pauli are no pushovers? Sure. That the Millerntor is a tough place to visit? Definitely. But more importantly, that time is running out. Bayern are eight points clear, and unless they spontaneously combust or collectively decide to try baseball instead, we’re gonna need a miracle run to catch up.

Next up: Augsburg at home. On paper, a classic “get back on track” game. In reality? A potential banana peel. At this point, we’ll take a 2:1, a 94th-minute winner, an own goal off someone’s backside – anything, as long as it gets us three points and a break from this relentless cycle of almosts and maybes.

Because if we don’t snap out of this draw-daze soon, we might wake up in May wondering where it all went wrong – again. And trust me, we’ve had enough Groundhog Days to last a lifetime.