Compared to the 2-1 home win against Eintracht Frankfurt, head coach Xabi Alonso made eight changes to his starting XI, with just Jonathan Tah, Piero Hincapie and Alejandro Grimaldo keeping their places. The early stages in the atmospheric Stade du Roudourou in Guingamp, around 100 kilometres from Brest, passed without any notable goalscoring chances for either team. The Werkself were unable to turn their dominance into dangerous attacking moves - until the 24th minute!
Jonas Hofmann played a superb through pass to Florian Wirtz, who spun with the ball at his feet and finished cooly into the bottom left-hand corner. The 21-year-old has now netted in each of his three appearances in Europe's premier club competition so far, bagging the opener on each occasion. The game then quietened down a little - until Brest equalised out of nowhere. Pierre Lees-Melou, standing in the centre, volleyed a high cross straight into the left corner (39'). The teams went into the break with the score at 1-1.
The first chance after the restart took 13 minutes and went to Brest's Kenny Lala. After just over an hour, head coach Xabi Alonso was ready to make his first changes of the evening, bringing on Jeremie Frimpong, Granit Xhaka and Amine Adli. And it almost bore fruit straight away: Wirtz fizzed the ball into the penalty area from the left, but several of his teammates couldn't connect, before Brest's Massadio Haidara almost put the ball into his own net (68'). The Werkself now piled on the pressure and Tah tried his luck with a header shortly afterwards (69'). At the other end, Kovar parried a long-range shot from Mahdi Camara (76').
Things got a bit heated again at the start of seven minutes of stoppage time: Hofmann appealed for a penalty after he appeared to be fouled from behind in the French box, but no spot-kick was awarded even after the VAR intervened. Despite a number of attempts by Leverkusen, the game finished all-square at 1-1.
The first of three consecutive weeks with midweek games concludes with the Bundesliga clash at SV Werder Bremen. Kick-off at the Weserstadion is at 18:30 CEST on Saturday, 26 October. This will be followed by the DFB Pokal second-round tie at home to SV 07 Elversberg on Tuesday, 29 October at 18:00 CET (Get your tickets here!).
The stats:
Stade Brest: Bizot - Lala, Chardonnet, Coulibaly, Haidara - Camara (83' Doumbia), Lees-Melou, Magnetti (83' Fernandes) - Del Castillo (72' Faivre), Ajorque (72' Salah), Sima (66' Balde)
Bayer 04: Kovar - Mukiele (72' Tapsoba), Tah, Hincapie, Grimaldo - Palacios (63' Xhaka), Garcia - Tella (63' Frimpong), Hofmann, Wirtz - Schick (63' Adli, 81' Terrier)
Goals: 0-1 Wirtz (24'), 1-1 Lees-Melou (39')
Yellow cards: Salah, Lees-Melou - Frimpong, Wirtz, Tah, Alonso (head coach)
Referee: Ivan Kružliak (Slovakia)
Spectators: 15,510 at Stade du Roudourou in Guingamp
It took exactly 60 minutes for the Werkself to take the lead through a perfectly finished counter-attack by Patrik Schick in the first leg of the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League play-off at Olympiacos. Referring to the meeting in the league phase and the initially squandered opportunities, coach Kasper Hjulmand said afterwards: "I thought: 'Oh no, déjà-vu.'" But after the opening goal, it took just 144 seconds for the Czech to spark more wild celebrations among those in black and red in the Greek cauldron, when Schick nodded in Alejandro Grimaldo's corner. Much to the delight of the Bayer 04 fans, his teammates and his coach, who had warm words for the striker in the aftermath. The Werkself Review.
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Werkself TV shows highlights of the 2-0 win at Olympiacos in the first leg of the play-offs of the UEFA Champions League 2025/26 league...
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The Werkself beat Olympiacos 2-0 in the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League play-off first leg to claim a crucial victory in the Greek capital. After a focused first-half display with a number of presentable chances, Patrik Schick crowned a textbook counter to hand the Werkself the lead on the hour (60’). The Czech rounded off his brace when he headed in from a corner just 144 seconds later. Bayer 04 maintained their lead with aplomb to achieve a good position for the return leg in Leverkusen.
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Bayer 04 and Olympiacos had only met twice before the current UEFA Champions campaign. After the encounter on Matchday 7 of this season’s league phase, the Werkself travel to face the Greek side for the second time in just four weeks for the knockout play-off first leg. The Black and Reds were dominant for large spells in mid-January but lost 2-0 after missing a number of presentable chances. The Werkself aim to do better on Wednesday night to “seize the chance for revenge,” as managing director sport Simon Rolfes put it. Here’s all you need to know ahead of the game in our matchday news.
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