Liverpool FC and AC Milan are on the verge of elimination in the Europa League – suddenly the historic treble is within reach for Bayer Leverkusen. But above all, the Atalanta Bergamo surprise bag still deserves a lot of attention.
After the 2-0 victory in the quarter-final first leg against West Ham United, achieved late and with the patience of a true champion, it is of course clear that Jonas Hofmann and Ticker at sportschau.de) warn at the London Stadium.
Hofmann rightly expects “a completely different game in London”, while Xabi Alonso points out that “West Ham now has nothing to lose”. But Leverkusen has all the more to gain.
It’s better not to celebrate the championship on the couch
The fact that the championship is only a matter of hours is not even denied by the Bayer players and their coach – they would just like it not to be on the couch on Saturday, but on Sunday at the home game against Werder Bremen at 5.30 p.m. (live Ticker at sportschau.de).
The DFB Cup will be added on May 25th. If the Werkself performs even remotely as seriously as they did in the 4-0 semi-final against Fortuna Düsseldorf, second division relegation candidate 1. FC Kaiserslautern will normally have no chance of preventing Granit Xhaka and Co. from triumphing. Would the triple be perfect then?
Europa League final on May 22nd
The Europa League final will take place in Dublin three days before the cup final in Berlin. Judging by their performances in the national leagues, three teams have so far had to be counted among the top favorites: in addition to Bundesliga leaders Leverkusen, the two Champions League relegated teams FC Liverpool and AC Milan.
Liverpool are fighting for the title in England on equal points with leaders FC Arsenal in the Premier League, while AC Milan are also in second place in Italy’s Serie A. But both teams are now facing elimination in the Europa League.
Match points for Bergamo and Roma
Liverpool can only save a miracle after the extremely sobering 0-3 home defeat against Atalanta Bergamo. Milan lost 0-1 at home against AS Roma and now also have really bad cards – Bergamo and Roma just have to use their match points.
It is already clear what will happen with Leverkusen’s possible semi-finals. If West Ham doesn’t make a big comeback, Bayer would initially avoid the difficult-to-calculate Bergamo team in the semi-finals and face the winner of the duel between Milan and Rome.
If the “Reds” don’t turn around the 0-3 somehow, Atalanta will have to deal with Benfica Lisbon or Olympique Marseille in the two semi-final duels on May 2nd and 9th. Benfica narrowly won the first leg at home 2-1.
Bergamo compact and hard to figure out
Judging by their performance at Anfield Road, Bergamo currently looks like the biggest stumbling block in this competition. What makes tactical fox Gian Piero Gasperini’s team so strong is their unity, their enormous compactness and their counterattacking strength.
Atalanta is extremely difficult to calculate, can retreat a long way and switch quickly, but can also create pressure in the midfield and then finish ice-cold, as in Liverpool twice with Gianluca Scamacca (38th minute and 61st) and Mario Pasalic (83rd).
19 different players have already scored for Bergamo this season, the best are currently the two attacking midfielders Teun Koopmeiners (13) and Charles De Ketelaere (10), alongside center forward Scamacca (13), closely followed by former Leipzig striker Ademola Lookman (9 ).
Suddenly fans from Dortmund
Leverkusen could definitely rely on great support from the Bundesliga if they were to participate in the final. A triumph in the Europa League could ultimately be the deciding factor for Germany to prevail in the head-to-head race with England for a fifth place in the Champions League.
As things stand, Borussia Dortmund is benefiting from this, BVB is currently tied for fifth place in the Bundesliga behind RB Leipzig and is motivated by this alone to suddenly become a big Leverkusen fan.