Wirtz decorated an uncomfortable victory in Leverkusen

In an uncomfortable match in the last minutes, the Bayer Leverkusen played with fire without getting burned and collected a fifth consecutive victory in all competitions after defeating St. Pauli 2-1, victim of another flash of Florian Wirtz, who opened the scoring with a great goal that broke the tedium at the Bay Arena stadium.

In full swing, rising in all competitions after accumulating four consecutive victories (two in the Bundesliga against Heiddenheim (5-2) and Unión Berlin (1-2), one in the Cup against Bayern Munich (0-1 ) and another in the Champions League against Salzburg (5-0), the team led by Xabi Alonso faced an a priori perfect opponent to extend their good streak.

The St. Pauli, on the edge of dangerous positions, had every chance to fall victim to a team unaffected by the presence of three of its most important attackers in the infirmary: Victor Boniface, Jonas Hoffman and Patrik Schick. Xabi Alonso, without his most offensive references, opted for an eleven without a forward with Wirtz as the differential man to slow down the clash.

And it took almost nothing for the Bayer Leverksusen jewel to wave the magic wand to produce a small work of art soon enough, when their fans were almost in their seats at the Bay Arena. The young German international was doing difficult things in a seemingly simple way and after six minutes he unleashed all his talent with a great tunnel on Eric Smith that allowed him to beat Nikola Vasilj in a one-on-one match.

Wirtz’s great goal changed the game plans for St. Pauli, forced to discard their conservatism to look for at least a draw and why not a victory in an isolated game. They were then forced to find an equalizer as Bayer Leverkusen settled on the pitch to dominate the entire first half with impressive ease.

In fact, he fell asleep in the game and could only concede one shot, very innocent and gentle from Oladapo Afolayan, which Lukas Hradecky stopped without any problem. And he didn’t do much more on the attack, because in addition to Wirtz’s goal, he barely had a second shot between three sticks to score again with complete effectiveness. This time, it was Jonathan Tah who hit the target after a corner was taken by Aleix García at the far post.

The goal of the Leverkusen center-back became a bright formality in the second half, where the distances and cause concern to his rival.

Morgan Guilavogui was alerted on two occasions before hitting the target: first, when he was about to push the ball into the net with his head and, later, when he scored a shot from the center of the area that went just wide . The third time was the charm and with five minutes remaining a fine goal was scored after setting up Arthur on a cutback who closed with a remote-directed left foot shot into Hradecky’s corner.

Bayer Leverkusen ended up asking for time. They suffered until four minutes into extra time, when the referee blew the final whistle and Xabi Alonso’s team calmed down, extending their fine run of results to their fifth consecutive victory which helped them stay comfortably in third place Bundesliga.

— Technical sheet:

2.- Bayer Leverkusen: Hradecky; Arthur, Tapsoba, Tah, Hincapié; Xhaka; Tella (Andrich, min. 87), Palacios (Frimpong, min. 60), Aleix García, Grimaldo (Belocian, min. 78); and Wirtz (Terrier, min. 78).

1.- St. Pauli: Vasilj; Saliakas (Ritzka, min. 89), Wahl, Smith, Nemeth (Dzwigala, min. 89), Treu; Afolayan (Ahlstrand, min. 82), Irvine, Boukhalfa (Sinani, min. 79), Guilavogui; and Eggestein (Albers, min. 89).

Goals: 1-0, min. 6: Wirtz; 2-0, min. 21: Tah; 2-1, min. 84: Guilavogui.

Referee: Matthias Jöllenbeck. He showed a yellow card to Hincapié (min. 28) of Bayer Leverkusen and to Gulavogui (min. 37), Saliakas (min. 75) and Dzwigala (min. 94) of St. home

Incidents: match corresponding to the thirteenth day of the Bundesliga played at the BayArena stadium in Leverkusen in front of almost 25,000 spectators.