Lois Openda walked off the pitch with his head down. Marco Rose, the RB Leipzig coach, held out his hand to shake the substituted Belgian striker’s hand. Openda shook it perfunctorily and turned to Rose to voice his dismay at something that had happened on the pitch. Rose vigorously patted Openda’s torso, cradled the 23-year-old’s head in his hands, and shouted words of encouragement into his ears.
A disconsolate Openda kept walking.
A few minutes later, Leipzig had lost the match, 2-3 to Bayer Leverkusen, on matchday 1 of this Bundesliga season. Openda had scored that day – his debut goal for Leipzig – but had also missed a sitter that would have levelled the scores and made it 3-3.
“We want to be pushing at the top, but we’ve got to pick up points to do that. It’s certainly not down to Lois’ missed chance to make it 3-3,” said Leipzig right-back Benjamin Henrichs after the match.
“He just came to Leipzig. I think he stays a little bit longer. That’s what I hope,” said Rose about Openda in November 2023. The Belgian striker already has 17 goals for his new club, along with 4 assists. The forward was a €43 million purchase from Lens, one of the players Leipzig had signed after losing Christopher Nkunku, Josko Gvardiol and Dominik Szoboszlai in the 2023 summer transfer window.
This season was supposed to be the one in which Leipzig made the final step, from title contenders to champions. And in Marco Rose, they have a Leipzig-born coach who famously led them to the title that never was.
Rose took charge of Leipzig in September 2022, after the club had fired their coach Domenico Tedesco following a poor start to the campaign. By the end of the season, Rose had led the Saxons (so called because the club is located in the Saxony region of Germany) to a 3rd place finish. If the 2022/23 Bundesliga season had begun when Rose took charge at the Red Bull Arena, Leipzig would have won their first German title.
In June 2023, Die Roten Bullen (The Red Bulls) won their second successive DFB Pokal title, ending the 2022/23 season on a winning note. The stage, it seemed, was set for a proper title tilt in the 2023/24 Bundesliga season.
But market realities intervened.
Leipzig lost, among others, Gvardiol (to Manchester City), Nkunku (to Chelsea) and Szoboszlai (to Liverpool) in the same transfer window. There were fears that the club would struggle to replicate the form of its previous few seasons, when it has consistently finished inside the top four for five seasons running.
However, Leipzig have just 3 points fewer now than what they had at this stage of the season during the last campaign. While they had 36 points from 19 matches last season, Rose’s men now have 33 points from the same number of matches.
What has changed, however, is the strength of the opposition.
Table-toppers Bayer Leverkusen lead Leipzig by a daunting 16 points this year as opposed to last season, when leaders Bayern Munich led Leipzig by only 4 points at this stage.
By now, Rose is used to seeing his best players leave the club each summer. “Our job is to prepare the guys in the best way, to show them that they are in the right place in Leipzig and not just for one year, maybe for two years or three years or the whole of their career because we, as a club, we have goals too,” the German coach said in November 2023 after a Champions League group stage match against European champions Manchester City.
The Champions League is one of only two competitions that Leipzig are currently in the running for this season. And their chances of winning the trophy are not any higher than the other competition they are still alive in – the Bundesliga. Let us see why.
As mentioned in the first and second part of this series, when assessing the title chances of the three challengers to Bayern’s Bundesliga title this season, we’ll look at 3 parameters:
- How the contenders have fared against each other this season
- How each club has fared against Bayern Munich, the champions and
- How each club has fared against the remaining teams in the division
BAYER LEVERKUSEN VS RB LEIPZIG (FIRST MEETING)
Date: August 19, 2023
Result: Bayer Leverkusen 3-2 RB Leipzig
In Leipzig’s first Bundesliga match of the season, Leverkusen didn’t allow Die Roten Bullen to build from the middle and were the better side in the first half. Xabi Alonso’s men pressed the newly-minted DFL Supercup winners resolutely and had taken a 2-0 lead by the 35th minute.
A delightful glancing header from Dani Olmo helped Leipzig open their account shortly after and reduce the gap, but Leverkusen continued to be the better side after the break and took a 3-1 lead in the 64th minute. This at last sparked a Leipzig response – and Openda reduced the arrears with another header shortly after. The Saxons hammered the Werkself‘s goal in the last 20 minutes, but were unable to take anything home as Leverkusen held them off.
“Leverkusen put a lot of pressure on us in the first half and we struggled to get any respite,” conceded the Leipzig striker Yussuf Poulsen after the match. “We didn’t have enough composure on the ball. We weren’t willing enough going into tackles. That was completely different in the second half. It was an avoidable defeat, but we also came up short in a number of areas today. However, you’ve got to admit that Leverkusen played really well.”
RB LEIPZIG VS BAYER LEVERKUSEN (SECOND MEETING)
Date: January 20, 2024
Result: RB Leipzig 2-3 Bayer Leverkusen
Leipzig played a terrific first half in which they scored early and could have been leading 3-0 by as early as the 14th minute. The Saxons pressed the league leaders all over the pitch and denied them the space Alonso’s men need to play their game. However, the chances that Leipzig failed to convert came back to haunt them as Leverkusen came back into the game hard in the second half.
Three defensive howlers by Leipzig allowed the Werkself to score three times in the second half, the last in stoppage time. While midfielder Xaver Schlager was culpable of losing his man twice during corners, which led to two of Leverkusen’s goals, left-back David Raum lost his man at the far post during Leverkusen’s opening goal.
Xavi Simons, who scored one of the goals of the season when netting Leipzig’s opener in the 7th minute with a 360° spin on the spot before converting his shot, was in tears at the final whistle. “We’re disappointed with the result because we worked hard. We’ve just got to keep going, though – there’s still a long way to go,” he said.
“It’s really tough,” confessed midfielder Christoph Baumgartner. “I think you can see that Leverkusen had a lot of momentum, since they also scored an injury-time winner last weekend (against Augsburg on January 13). At the end of the day, they put us under pressure and we couldn’t cope with it.”
RB LEIPZIG VS VFB STUTTGART (FIRST MEETING)
Date: August 25, 2023
Result: RB Leipzig 5-1 VFB Stuttgart
Die Roten Bullen were facing Stuttgart on matchday 2, in the immediate aftermath of Leipzig’s 2-3 defeat to Bayer Leverkusen on matchday 1, and showed urgency and energy in pressing the Swabians. Despite their intent, however, they went into the break trailing Stuttgart 0-1 at the Red Bull Arena.
“”Emotions were high at the break,” conceded Leipzig captain Willie Orban after the match. “We took that energy into the second half.”
After the break, Sebastian Hoeness’ men showed their naivety in allowing Leipzig too much time on the ball, and paid for it. In one 15-minute spurt, Leipzig scored three times, helped by two goals borne out of inadvertent mistakes made by Stuttgart players. But Leipzig induced those mistakes.
They also scored two fine goals, scored by Dani Olmo and Xavi Simons, who both displayed rare skill and composure for their age to score Leipzig’s third and fifth goals. Olmo is 25 years old and Simons is 20.
“We tried to play through the centre too often in the first half, but we had more width in our game after the break and got our goals,” said right-back Henrichs after the match.
“We can’t start thinking that we’re title material after one 5-1 win. We need to show consistency if we want to be challenging this season, and that’s something we’re working on.”
VFB STUTTGART VS RB LEIPZIG (SECOND MEETING)
Date: January 27, 2024
Result: VFB Stuttgart 5-2 RB Leipzig
A Stuttgart without their talismanic striker Serhou Guirassy – away on international duty for Guinea at the Africa Cup of Nations – got a measure of revenge against Leipzig with a crushing 5-2 victory over the Saxons when the teams met recently at the MHPArena. In the reverse fixture played in August 2023 at the Red Bull Arena, Leipzig had creamed Stuttgart 5-1.
Leipzig were playing catch-up throughout the match, neither keeping the ball well nor reclaiming it to any great effect. Stuttgart had raced to a 2-0 lead by the half-hour mark, and whenever Leipzig pulled one back, their sloppy defence kept letting the Swabians back into the game.
“We need to start picking up points again as soon as possible. Having said that, we didn’t deserve any today,” said Leipzig centre-back Lukas Klostermann. “Stuttgart were clearly the better team, we have to be honest about that.”
BAYERN MUNICH VS RB LEIPZIG (FIRST MEETING, DFL SUPERCUP)
Date: August 12, 2023
Result: Bayern Munich 0-3 RB Leipzig
On the day Harry Kane made his debut for Bayern Munich, the German champions were oddly sterile in front of goal. They created chances by the hatful, but were curiously unable to convert them.
Leipzig, on the other hand, didn’t need as many chances. On two occasions in the first half, they spied tiny cracks in Bayern’s defence and rammed the ball home, giving them a 2-0 lead at the break. A mistake by Bayern right-back Noussair Mazraoui in the second half brought them a penalty kick, which Dani Olmo converted. Olmo, who scored all their goals, was central to all of them, either as the instigator or executioner.
Leipzig’s win was a result of both vigilant defending by Rose’s side as well as slack finishing by Bayern.
“It was a great game. We ran a lot and gave everything. It was the perfect game,” Olmo later said. “We knew Bayern would have a lot of possession. There’s no better way to start the season.”
RB LEIPZIG VS BAYERN MUNICH (SECOND MEETING, BUNDESLIGA)
Date: September 30, 2023
Result: RB Leipzig 2-2 Bayern Munich
A courageous Leipzig performance saw the hosts race to a 2-0 lead against the champions by the 26th minute. Whenever Bayern got the ball, especially inside Leipzig’s half, they were pressed relentlessly. Die Roten Bullen closed out the first half leading 2-0, and had good reason to be confident of victory.
However, an injudicious foul by Leipzig right-back Henrichs in the second half conceded a penalty and allowed Bayern back into the game. Bayern began dominating after their first goal and by the 70th minute, had scored their second.
The champions would have scored a third but Leipzig’s defensive discipline didn’t allow Bayern to take attacks to their natural conclusion. Rose’s men threatened to find the winner as late as in the 95th minute but superb goal keeping by the Bayern keeper, Sven Ulreich, denied them.
“In the end, it’s a fair sharing of the points,” said Rose after the match. “We had the better chances to score and didn’t allow the opposition too many. The boys are doing well, even though we had to suffer a lot today. We showed again that we are a force to be reckoned with.”
In their matches against fellow title contenders this season, Leipzig haven’t always looked convincing, exceeding expectations one moment before being hemmed in by the opposition in another.
In their two meetings each with Bayern, Leverkusen and Stuttgart so far this season, Leipzig have 3 wins, 2 defeats and 1 draw. They lost both their matches to Leverkusen, beat Bayern once and drew with them another time and won one and lost another to Stuttgart. They haven’t always looked convincing in these matches, exceeding expectations one moment before being hemmed in by the opposition in another. They have lacked consistency.
RB LEIPZIG VS THE REST OF THE BUNDESLIGA
A club with positive, attacking football at its core, Leipzig have faced trouble in breaking down teams that defend in numbers this season. Perhaps the clearest example of this came in Leipzig’s 0-2 defeat to relegation-battlers Mainz in November 2023. Mainz have won one match all season and that was against Leipzig. “It’s the second time (this season) that we’ve not brought enough to the table against teams that like to sit deep,” said Rose after the match, referring to Leipzig’s 0-1 defeat to VFL Wolfsburg in the DFB Pokal a few days earlier.
“We’ve got to hang in there and go back to our values.”
Leipzig had created enough chances against Mainz and Wolfsburg to win but had not converted them. “We’re doing all the right things fundamentally, but we need to be more attacking. It mostly comes down to decision-making and making sure we score,” Rose said after the Mainz defeat.
However, this is an issue Leipzig have not quite mastered this season, which is reflected in their standing in the Bundesliga table.
In their matches against the rest of the Bundesliga, Leipzig have recorded 10 wins, 3 defeats and 2 draws. In the five league matches in which they have failed to collect 3 points this season, Leipzig’s xG (Expected Goals) is far superior to their opponents’, except in one case (the 1-1 draw with Werder Bremen).
| Opponent | Date | Result | Opponent’s xG | RB Leipzig’s xG |
| Bochum (H) | Oct 7, 2023 | 0-0 | 0.37 | 2.55 |
| Mainz (A) | Nov 4, 2023 | 0-2 | 0.51 | 0.96 |
| Wolfsburg (A) | Nov 25, 2023 | 1-2 | 0.96 | 2.77 |
| Bremen (A) | Dec 19, 2023 | 1-1 | 1.51 | 1.67 |
| Frankfurt (H) | Jan 13, 2024 | 0-1 | 1.09 | 3.56 |
“We got the ball forwards and created lots of high-quality chances. We wanted to score, but lacked composure from time to time,” said Rose after Leipzig’s shock defeat to Frankfurt on January 13, another instance of the Saxons dominating a game but failing to collect all three points. “We tried everything, but didn’t get the goal we deserved. It’s a tough one to take.”
SO, CAN RB LEIPZIG WIN THE BUNDESLIGA?
They can, but not this season. Bayer Leverkusen, the table-toppers, are unbeaten in all competitions this season and have dropped just 8 points in their 19 Bundesliga matches so far. With 49 points, they have a 16-point lead over Leipzig, who have 33. With 15 matches to go in the current season, it’s hard to see Leverkusen drop even a few points, leave alone 16 – and equally hard to imagine Leipzig winning all of their remaining 15 league matches.
As things stand, Die Roten Bullen are 5th in the table after losing their last three matches (against Eintracht Frankfurt, Bayer Leverkusen and VFB Stuttgart) and have slipped out of Champions League qualification.
“Everybody is aware that we didn’t play well enough. We need to closely look at what went wrong,” said Leipzig sporting director Rouven Schroder after the 2-5 defeat to Stuttgart on January 27. “It’s important now that we analyse things in great detail. Everybody will have to play their part in getting us back on track.”
If Marco Rose has shown anything during his time at Leipzig, it’s that he knows how to get out of a crisis. Leipzig were in one when he took over the job last season, and after three successive league defeats, the club are in a mini-crisis now.
“We have young and experienced players, everything you need is there,” Rose had said during his unveiling as Leipzig coach in September 2022. “We want to get more stability at the back by putting more pressure on the ball up front.”
In the 2022/23 season, the Saxons managed to do exactly that, surging from 11th place in the table to 3rd within two months of Rose taking over as coach. They also mounted a late title challenge, one ultimately won by Bayern. A title tilt for Leipzig looks unlikely at the moment this season, but Die Roten Bullen have more than enough to get back into the top four spots and qualify for the Champions League. All Rose needs to do is sink into his chair in his office, grab videos of last season’s Leipzig games and look at what his team did under him when he first took over.
CONCLUSION
Come July 1, it will be 120 years since the club that became Bayer Leverkusen – Turn- und Spielverein Bayer 04 Leverkusen (Bayer 04 Leverkusen Gymnastics and Games Club) – was founded. They have finished as runners-up in the Bundesliga five times, a German record. They have also finished as runners-up in the DFB Pokal three times (to go with their solitary win in 1992/93) and the UEFA Champions League once — earning them the cruel moniker, ‘Neverkusen’.
But if Xabi Alonso’s men continue the remarkable run they’re currently on – unbeaten in all competitions since the start of this season, 27 and counting at the time of writing – they will etch a new name against the name of their club: that of champions.
With 15 rounds to go, the Bundesliga title race, which looked to be a four-team race after the first third of the season – containing Bayern, Leverkusen, Leipzig and Stuttgart – now seems to have been reduced to a two-horse race.
However, Leverkusen are up against a Bayern side who will not part with their title without an almighty scrap, as shown in Leverkusen’s 2-2 draw with Thomas Tuchel’s men last September. After Bayern recently defeated Union Berlin to win their match in hand and Leverkusen drew with Borussia Monchengladbach, the Werkself‘s lead at the top of the Bundesliga is now down to 2 points. With 15 rounds to go, the Bundesliga title race, which looked to be a four-team race after the first third of the season – containing Bayern, Leverkusen, Leipzig and Stuttgart – now seems to have been reduced to a two-horse race. While it is impossible to predict who will eventually win the title, the next few months promise to be captivating.