Leverkusen’s capitulation at Bayern confirms demise of an engaging rivalry | Andy Brassell

If it was going to end, it was always likely to end here. That it was going to end exactly like this, though, was not so predictable. Bayer Leverkusen arrived at the Allianz Arena on a run of 37 Bundesliga away games unbeaten, and they never looked like extending it. You will forgive the Bundesliga neutral for mourning not the loss of an incredible record-breaking sequence which stretched back to 27 May 2023 – when Xabi Alonso’s team were heavily beaten by relegation-battling Bochum – but the demise of a competitor to Bayern Munich not seen since Jürgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund were in their thrilling pomp.

This was less an authentic Topspiel and more a piercing afterparty hangover, a tough supermarket-bread pretzel and lukewarm coffee, a Monday morning letter from HMRC, a black and white declaration of unavoidable dues owed. All of which, of course, was great for Bayern as they limbered up for this week’s Champions League meeting (a real deal Topspiel) against holders Paris Saint-Germain, with the recently re-signed Vincent Kompany able to show the authority and pragmatism that led him to this point by leaving Harry Kane, Luis Díaz and Michael Olise on the substitutes’ bench.

This is no criticism of Kompany or Bayern, who have earned the right to manage the resources of hardly their biggest squad in recent memory as they see fit. After dispatching the 2024 champions – or what’s left of them – Bayern’s record for the season stands at a magnificent 15 games, 15 wins.

In many ways this latest one was Kompany’s governance of the campaign in microcosm: the revival of Serge Gnabry, who scored the opener midway through the first half; the make-do-and-mend approach which is successful enough to look anything but with Konrad Laimer and now young Tom Bischof excelling in the full-back positions (they assisted the first two goals, with Laimer laying on a first Bundesliga strike for Nicolas Jackson); the status to leave out the likes of Kane and it not being a big issue. They remained impossible to contain, racing into a 3-0 half-time lead which they never relinquished. The coach has, in the words of Süddeutsche Zeitung’s Martin Schneider, “transformed Bayern back into a beast”.

Vincent Kompany began with Harry Kane, Luis Díaz and Michael Olise on the bench. Photograph: Christina Pahnke/sampics/Corbis/Getty Images

Bayern were nevertheless met with little resistance. Leverkusen had an xG of 0.02 at half-time, and that rose to just 0.12 after a second half of Bayern cruising with a comfortable lead and making a raft of changes. “We were never,” said the characteristically frank Robert Andrich, “in a zone in the first half where we were going to be able to compete with Bayern.” One wonders how much of Kasper Hjulmand’s over-cautious approach – with an apparent 3-4-2-1 quickly becoming a 5-4-1, and with their star Alejandro Grimaldo and the experienced Jonas Hofmann also both on the bench – was residual damage from Die Werkself’s own recent Champions League brush with PSG, in which they played bravely and creditably in the first half and still found themselves 4-1 down at the break en route to a humiliating 7-2 loss.

Just as Bayern can’t be blamed for the death of competition, neither can Leverkusen. OK, the Erik Ten Hag appointment was a misstep but much of this season’s pain was inevitable after the mass sales of the summer. Hjulmand has a packed calendar and little time to create a cohesive unit from a set of talented players who are still on course to make the top four; a good outcome. As a club Leverkusen deserve credit for recognising who and where they are, and that they can’t be Bayern. But having been spoiled in this fixture in recent years, waving goodbye to an engaging rivalry is a sweet sorrow.

Talking points

• Even if they can hardly be seen as a genuine threat to Bayern – despite having developed considerably from their 6-0 humbling in Munich on the season’s opening night – RB Leipzig are going a long way towards arguing they are the best of the rest. Ole Werner’s team remain second, five points behind, after a beguiling display to polish off another of the early season high-fliers, Stuttgart. Their new pieces are clicking, with the excellent 18-year-old Yan Diomande shining (and scoring) again and centre-forward Rômulo clinching a 3-1 win late on after taking advantage of Alexander Nübel’s stumble. “His name says it all,” said the latter of the former. “He’s a diamond.”

• Jobe Bellingham may not have had quite as seismic an impact on the Bundesliga so far as Diomandé, but he made a valuable cameo in Dortmund’s narrow win at struggling Augsburg on Friday night that kept them third, earning fulsome praise from his coach Niko Kovac. “He’s always present, he has great physicality and a technical quality that he showed again here in his 30 minutes on the pitch,” Kovac told Sky after Bellingham helped to secure the result with a perfect last-ditch tackle on Elvis Rexhbecaj, preventing the Kosovan from scoring an equaliser. “I have no doubts about him. Quite the opposite. We’re building him up step-by-step. In fact, it’s going even faster than I expected because the boy has so much quality.”

• It’s been a week of considerable progress too for Borussia Mönchengladbach, following up the 3-1 DfB Pokal win over second-tier Karslruhe with a first Bundesliga win since March, ending a desperate run of 15 without a win – and with great style, as they eventually thumped St Pauli 4-0, with a brace from Haris Tabakovic and a virtuoso midfield display from the renewed Florian Neuhaus, who had been banished to the under-23 team at the start of the season. It was timely too, with Heidenheim and Mainz both performing creditably in isolation during 1-1 draws with Eintracht Frankfurt and Werder Bremen respectively. But their failures to win allowed Gladbach to lift themselves out of the bottom two with their win in Hamburg. Despite the impressive display and result their sporting director, Rouven Schröder, is expected to hold off naming Eugen Polanski, the interim coach, as the permanent successor to Gerardo Seoane, with the derby against FC Köln to come ahead of the international pause.

Jobe Bellingham played a key role in Dortmund’s win over Augsburg. Photograph: Alexandra Beier/AFP/Getty Images

• Köln beat fellow promoted side Hamburg on Sunday afternoon to enter the derby in fine fettle, with new centre-forward Ragnar Ache adding a first Bundesliga goal to his Pokal strike against Bayern in the week. But everyone had almost forgotten about Ache’s opener by the end of a tortuously long second half, with referee Daniel Schlager and his team taking a ludicrous six minutes to chalk off a Fábio Vieira goal for the visitors, which had seemed a fairly open and shut case (Schlager defended himself by arguing that “safety takes precedence over speed”, though the restless crowd at the RheinEnergie Stadion clearly felt differently even if the process eventually found in their favour. It led to 12 minutes of stoppage time – a long enough stretch to turn the home side’s 2-1 lead against nine men into a comprehensive (on paper, at least) 4-1 thumping with additional goals on the counter by the excellent Said El Mala and Jakub Kaminski.