Friday night was no first day fun for VfB Stuttgart as they got first-hand proof of what the rest of the Bundesliga feared: that Bayern Munich are perhaps mightier than ever. The curtain-raiser, though, didn’t actually set the tone for the the weekend. German football has long insisted there is more to their elite league than a title race, and now they have a story that shows the world that surprise and wonder does indeed live here too.
Bayer Leverkusen arrived into their opening fixture of the campaign thinking their season might contain greater certainty than the last one, a more tranquil voyage after being blown off course by almost €300m of player sales and the ill-fated appointment of Erik ten Hag. Enter SV Elversberg, Bundesliga first-timers and representatives of – a “miracle village” as Bild put it – Spiesen-Elversberg, a town with a population of just over 13,000, situated 15km north-east of Saarbrücken, 30 minutes’ drive from the French border. The miracle got big enough for all to see it on the Bundesliga’s inaugural Saturday afternoon.
Seventy minutes into their top-flight debut and the locals gathered in the Ursapharm Arena – currently under a renovation programme to bring it up to a modest 15,000 capacity, with journalists covering the game from a temporary steel gantry on top of scaffolding and accordingly given a safety briefing beforehand – were pinching themselves. Vincent Wagner’s team led 3-0, courtesy of two goals in the space of 60 seconds in the opening 10 minutes, and then a third 25 seconds after half-time. New Leverkusen coach Carles Martínez, who looked increasingly exasperated on the touchline as the game went on, threw a host of forwards on to salvage the game, and Patrick Schick and Christian Kofané both scored to reduce the arrears, but it wasn’t enough.
A town with no train station and no town hall was now home to a team not only with a first-day Bundesliga win (and no team from Saarland had won a top-flight game since 1993 when FC Saarbrücken beat – you guessed it – Leverkusen), but a victory over the 2024 champions, no less. Even arriving in the same division was akin to a “moon landing”, Wagner had said before the game, continuing to say staying up would be their “mission to Mars”. August results may be notoriously fickle and this may seem like years ago by November, but the win was no fluke.
And make no mistake, Leverkusen were shook from minute one. Elversberg pressed and rattled them, with the visitors’ new captain Edmund Tapsoba looking more the Bundesliga debutant, prone as Lukas Petkov opened the scoring and then turning over the ball almost from kick-off, as Cole Campbell swept into the area to bludgeon in a quickfire second. The Bulgarian midfielder Petkov had led from the front in the promotion campaign, scoring 13 and creating another six to pick up the slack after top scorer Younes Ebnoutalib left for Eintracht Frankfurt in the winter break.
True to form, Petkov also created David Mokwa’s goal at the start of the second half, which turned out to be the difference with a delicious delivery from the right. Yet Campbell is really indicative of the step up. Bought from Borussia Dortmund for €6m in the summer, the 20-year-old from Houston has been rated for a while without truly making a dent in the top tier, either at BVB or on loan at Hoffenheim.
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