“Let’s be clear. If we play 100 times with them, let’s lose 99. So it’s simple, we have to make this game the only one we will win.” The irony of the phrase of coach Michel Kniat, said the day before, came true on the night of Tuesday (1st). Arminia Bielefeld of the third division hit Bayer Leverkusen, the current Bundesliga champion, and qualified for the German Cup final.
The unlikely 2-1 score was one of the few topics to play the headlines of the country’s newspapers with Donald Trump’s long -awaited tariff. Bielefeld, with 120 years of history, is a peculiar trajectory club, which has already been called “elevator” by the constant access and relegations _ Disease 1963, when the Bundesliga was created, the team accumulates eight falls for the second division and four for the third.
Last season, even, Bielefeld flirted with the relegation zone for the fourth division, something that would be unheard of. Things are much more comfortable in the current championship, in which it occupies fourth place, not yet enough for access (the first two climb, and the third disputes a play-off with the third worse in the division above).
“We played with a lot of passion, this was fundamental. It was great to go to the break with the advantage and, in the second half, we kept the pressure to a deserved victory,” said Kniat, highlighting the resilience of their players, who took a goal after 17 minutes, then tied and got the advantage of the first half. “It was absolutely surreal,” said Maximilian Grosser, author of the decisive goal.
This is the fourth time that a third division club reaches the German Cup, which, unlike the Brazilian version, has been played in unique games. It would be unfair, however, to credit Bielefeld’s success only to the format. In the current tournament the team has already eliminated four first division clubs, and the last victim, Leverkusen, besides being the current champion of the Bundesliga and Championship finalist, also defended the title of the World Cup.
Club managers, who is six points from leader Bayern in the first division, complained that Bielefeld did not irrigate the field minutes before the match, usual in the Bundesliga. “It’s not mandatory, we never do that. We would do today why?” Said Michael Mutzel, director of Bielefeld. The wet lawn makes the ball roll faster, which favors teams that value possession and passes, such as Alonso, who last year became the European coach with the biggest unbeaten sequence in history, with 51 matches without defeat.
World champion with Spain in 2010 and two-time Eurocopa champion, former Liverpool and Real Madrid honeycomb had a meteoric rise as a coach. After two seasons at Real Sociedad, he took Leverkusen in the relegation zone in 2022 and last year interrupted Bayern’s hegemony, which already lasted 11 seasons.
“We could not impact the attack and made a lot of mistakes on defense. It was clearly our worst game this season. We have to accept that we did bullshit,” said midfielder Robert Andrich.
Bielefeld will play the final, also in a single game on May 24 at the Berlin Olympic Stadium. The opponent will leave this Wednesday (2) of the duel between Stuttgart and Leipzig, current 11th and 6th places of the Bundesliga. “We don’t need luck,” said coach Kniat.
