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29.10.2018Bundesliga

What the papers say: 'Counter-attacking football par excellence'

Werder Bremen had not lost at home for a year and were unbeaten in the previous 16 Bundesliga games at the Weserstadion. Until Bayer 04 arrived on Saturday night to storm the Green and White fortress. The reaction in the media was definitely in favour of the Werkself after the brilliant 6-2 victory for Leverkusen.
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The headline in the Bild Zeitung: 'Mad win! Bayer finally play magical football' and the report reads: "This timely win is HERRLICH (brilliant)! Volland (8') plus the two Bremen lads Brandt (38'/born on the Weser) and Bellarabi (45'/spent six seasons in the Werder youth set-up) settled it by the break – 0-3. Bremen have never been further behind at the break."

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung  sum up the match and the result in one sentence: 'Leverkusen take werder apart." The article reads: "Heiko Herrlich's future was up for discussion after just eight points from eight games. Werder made it easy for his team to win their third game of the season with some tenous defensive work. At the same time, Bremen fought back from 3-0 down to 3-2 in the second half. But Havertz’ wonderful chip at 4-2 and Pavlenka's error for the 5-2 enabled Leverkusen to relax. The tempo of this lively team in the stadium was brilliant... Eight or nine goals for Leverkusen would have been possible on the night."

The Bonner General Anzeiger saw the unexpected runaway victory from the viewpoint of the coach: 'Herrlich (brilliant) for Herrlich' was the headline.The report continued: "With counter-attacking football par excellence, Bayer Leverkusen were able to halt their downward slide against a Bremen side strong at home and remove coach Heiko Herrlich from the line of fire. The Rhinelanders won 6-2 at Werder in a hig-quality game and inflicted the first home defeat on the North Germans since the coach Florian Kohfeldt took over in October 2017. Since then, Bremen went 16 games unbeaten in front of their own fans in the Bundesliga."

The Rheinische Post declares: "Bayer blast their way out of a crisis.". The Munich-based Abendzeitung  says: "Bayer blaze away."

The Kölner Stadt Anzeiger reports: Bayer 04 rolled over the in-form Bremen side at the Weserstadion with a 6-2 victory in the best performance of the season. It could be a new start for the Werkself. 'Of course, now we've raised the bar very high ourselves. And now we'll have to be evalued accordingly," said Julian Brandt. 'We don't want to produce performances like that very eight weeks but rather more regularly. Best of all, in Wednesday's cup game at Gladbach.'"
Like many other journalists, this reporter focused on the events after the final whistle: "Rudi Völler actually wanted to celebrate the runaway victory at his old stomping ground in peace. But then Bayer's sporting managing director was forced to make one of his famous rants. "That was a disgrace. Incredible," raged Völler after he heard the pay TV broadcaster Sky was speculating about the future of Heiko Herrlich in spite of the runaway victory."

The conclusion of the Kicker reads: "With a rousing 6-2 win at Werder Bremen, Bayer Leverkusen have blown away all their frustration. Against a mostly overstretched Bremen defence, that had to manage without main man Moisander, the fast Leverkusen attack of Brandt, Bellarabi and Co. rarely had any problems."

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