On Saturday, 7 April 2001, Bayer 04 field the following line-up at Frankfurt's Waldstadion: Frank Juric - Lucio, Jens Nowotny, Robert Kovac, Carsten Ramelow, Jurica Vranjes, Bernd Schneider, Michael Ballack, Paulo Rink, Ulf Kirsten, Oliver Neuville
Eintracht start on the front foot. After just seven minutes, Gebhardt is denied by Frank Juric after a quick counter-attack. With quick passes, the Frankfurt team missed out the midfield time and again and had their second clear-cut chance after a quarter of an hour. Preuß's through ball reached Wimmer, but the Austrian allowed himself to be pushed away to right, allowing Juric to keep out his low shot with his foot (16').
The hitherto harmless Werkself took the lead in the 21st minute out of the blue. Ulf Kirsten flicked a cross from Paulo Rink with his left foot into the right-hand corner of the Eintracht goal. Frankfurt were unimpressed and only seconds later Yang had a good shooting chance after a mistake by Robert Kovac. The future FC Bayern player did not have a good day. After his second foul, referee Keßler sent off Robert Kovac for a second yellow card in the 36th minute and the Werkself now played with ten men. But Bayer 04 managed to take the lead into the break.
In the second half, the hosts initially struggled to develop pressure again. Bayer 04 dropped back and increasingly relied on counter-attacks. Oliver Neuville negligently missed one of them after Paulo Rink's through-ball and Dirk Heinen won the one-on-one (57'). Frankfurt took their chance on the counter-attack: Heldt sent Yang up field, who broke through on the right and he gave Frank Juric no chance with a shot into the far corner (58').
The game now seemed to be tipping in the Hessians' favour, but a former Leverkusen player of all people dashed the hopes of a successful debut for Frankfurt's new coach Friedel Rausch. Following a corner from Paulo Rink, former Werkself keeper Dirk Heinen failed to make contact with the ball and Lucio was in the right place to nod home to make it 2-1 (67'). Ten minutes later, the goalkeeper saved a free-kick from Ballack heading for the corner of the net. However, he was powerless against Lucio's solo effort eight minutes before the end. The Brazilian skilfully avoided the offside trap and then beat Heinen with the outside of his foot.
At the end of the season, Bayer 04 were in fourth place. If the Werkself had won their home games against Schalke and Bayern, who were fighting for the league title on the last matchday, instead of losing both, Leverkusen would have been champions of Germany in 2001. But it was not to be 25 years ago.
