Chicharito scores in 1-1 draw with Porto

Roger Schmidt was able to pick from a large number of established players and gave most of them at least 45 minutes in the new red away kit. The Werkself had to recover from going behind early on in the game. Porto’s striker André Silva exploited a mistake in the Leverkusen defence on eight minutes to give the Portuguese the lead.

Roger Schmidt’s team, having trained at the BayArena in the morning and with Lars Bender sidelined, took a while to recover from the setback. Kyriakos Papadopoulos rose to meet a corner from the lively Hakan Calhanoglu and directed a header goalward but the Spanish European Championship and World Cup winner Iker Casillas was able to make the save on 24 minutes. The game developed into an open encounter with the Werkself pressing for an equaliser. However, Chicharito, Kevin Volland and Co. were unable to find the back of net straight away.

Impressive equaliser

That all changed after the restart. Schmidt brought on André Ramalho and Admir Mehmedi and Calhanoglu went just wide with a long-range effort on 48 minutes. Leverkusen were rewarded for all their efforts ten minutes later: Volland picked out his strike partner Chicharito with a breathtaking disguised pass in the penalty area and the Mexican was hand to curl the ball over the keeper to level the scores at 1-1. An impressive combination of the two strikers to whet the appetite for more.

Chicharito went off shortly after that to be replaced by Joel Pohjanpalo making his first appearance after his loan period at Fortuna Düsseldorf. And the agile Finn fitted in at once. He looked to get on the end of a cross from another substitute Levin Öztunali but the ball went just wide of the target. Shortly after that, Öztunali almost netted a winner but his header from a Mehmedi cross also failed to find the target. The game ended 1-1.

Off to Austria on Thursday

While FC Porto have almost completed an eleven-day training camp in Kamen-Kaiserau the Werkself are about to start the busy phase of the pre-season. The Bayer 04 squad, management and support staff head for Zell am See in Kaprun, Austria on Thursday for a training camp designed to lay the foundations for the coming campaign.

Match stats:

Bayer 04: Özcan – Hilbert (Akkaynak 74’), Papadopoulos (Ramalho 46’), Toprak (Cacutalua 82’), Henrichs – Kampl, Calhanoglu (Yurchenko 62’, Havertz 76’) – Bellarabi (Öztunali 62’), Brandt (Mehmedi 46’) – Volland (Schreck 75’), Chicharito (Pohjanpalo 62’).

Goals: 0-1 André Silva (8’), 1-1 Chicharito (58’)