Bayer 04 Leverkusen manager Xabi Alonso on Friday asked for more character after his side beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 3-2 in the Bundesliga season opener through yet another stoppage-time winner.
Leverkusen were awarded a penalty deep into added-time and Florian Wirtz scored on a rebound to earn the visitors the three points after ’Gladbach’s Ko Itakura fouled substitute Amine Adli.
“It was an intense first Bundesliga game for us,” Alonso told a news conference. “A lot of things happened in the second half, it was full of emotion right to the end. We did well in many phases, but we weren’t always so compact today, we were also a bit passive in some phases. We have to do that better. We have to be more aggressive.”
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“It’s difficult to explain why we always score late goals. We can’t train that and I can’t influence it. It’s the mentality of the team,” he said.
Champions Leverkusen, who set a European record of 51 consecutive games without loss across all competitions last season, kept their unbeaten streak intact with a lot of late equalizers.
“We said at halftime that we must not let up and not think that the game is over,” former ’Gladbach player Granit Xhaka said. “At the end of the first half, we started not being consistent enough in our passing game and losing easy balls. Here at home, ’Gladbach never die, you could see that in the [goals for] 1-2 and 2-2.”
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Xhaka gave Leverkusen the lead in the 12th minute, but did not celebrate out of respect for his former club.
“I had the feeling that we made it unnecessarily difficult for ourselves,” said Wirtz, who scored two goals on the night, including the decider. “We were asleep when it came to conceding goals. We let it slip away ourselves, even though we were actually in control, although we didn’t have the ball the whole time.”
LIGUE 1
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AP, PARIS
Paris Saint-Germain on Friday routed Montpellier Herault 6-0 to make it two wins in two games in Ligue 1 as they start life without Kylian Mbappe, who left for Real Madrid in the off-season.
PSG are seeking their fourth straight league title, but many had expected its grip on the trophy to loosen after the departure of its star forward.
So far, that has not been the case, with the team netting 10 goals in their opening two matches.
Bradley Barcola opened the scoring after three minutes with an angled strike from 9m out and Marco Asensio doubled the lead with a low shot from the center of the area after being teed up by a delicate pass from Joao Neves.
Ousmane Dembele’s perfect pass gave Barcola the simplest of tap-ins for the third goal eight minutes into the second half, Achraf Hakimi’s side-footed volley made it 4-0 in the 57th minute and Warren Zaire-Emery slotted home another on the hour mark.
Substitute Lee Kang-in got his second goal in two games when he completed the rout eight minutes from time.
LA LIGA
AP, MADRID
RC Celta de Vigo on Friday marked the 101st anniversary of the club’s founding with a 3-1 win over Valencia for a second straight La Liga win to start the season.
It marked the first time since 2015 that the Galician club have won their first two matches of the season and handed Valencia a second straight loss.
Celta captain and striker Iago Aspas was again at the heart of events. He scored for the second game in a row and then missed a penalty just before halftime.
Diego Lopez had put Valencia ahead after 14 minutes when he converted from close range after a goalmouth scramble, but Celta equalized midway through the first half through Oscar Mingueza.
Aspas’ goal came five minutes later when the 37-year-old forward took a weighted through ball from Mingueza and finished perfectly into the bottom corner.
Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili saved Aspas’ spot-kick in first-half injury time, but Fran Beltran added the third goal on the hour mark with a classy strike from the edge of the penalty area.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
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