Canadian midfielder Alphonso Davies was pulled with an apparent injury in the 40th minute of a 5-1 Bayern Munich triumph on Sunday.
Coach Julian Nagelsmann stated the 20-year-old had felt “a light pain in his hamstring” and hopes he’s better by Wednesday.
Bayern rebounded from a rare loss to Eintracht Frankfurt in its previous match, with Robert Lewandowski and Serge Gnabry leading the attack with two goals apiece on Sunday.
Four goals in seven minutes left Leverkusen in tatters before halftime, an indication that denying Bayern of a 10th consecutive title in the Bundesliga certainly won’t be easy, and may be impossible.
Nagelsmann praised his team’s progress since the loss to Frankfurt, when Bayern couldn’t convert numerous scoring opportunities.
“We had a phase of 10, 12 minutes when we played extraordinarily well with a lot of pressure” to take the game away from Leverkusen, Nagelsmann said.
Bayern needed fewer than four minutes to take the lead with a touch of style from Lewandowski. Dayot Upamecano picked up a free kick on the touchline and crossed it low for Lewandowski to score with a backheel ahd halt a two-game scoring skid. The Poland striker’s relentless scoring form means that was his worst Bundesliga run since 2019.
Davies danced through the Leverkusen penalty area to set up the second before laying the ball off for Lewandowski to apply the finish in the 30th minute before Leverkusen collapsed.
Thomas Muller claimed the third goal in the 34th when Niklas Sule’s shot deflected off his thigh and into the net. The fourth came seconds after the restart, Gnabry scoring off Muller’s cross as Leverkusen’s offside trap misfired. Then came a fifth in the 37th, Gnabry again after combining with Leon Goretzka, as a once-close game turned swiftly into a humiliation.
For the second season in a row, Bayern came to Leverkusen with the clubs at the top of the Bundesliga table and snuffed out Leverkusen’s budding title hopes. At least last year it was close — Lewandowski sealing a 2-1 victory in added time — but this time, the young, fast Leverkusen team built by new coach Gerardo Seoane was utterly outclassed.
The victory returned Bayern to top spot in the Bundesliga with a one-point lead over Borussia Dortmund, which beat Mainz 3-1 a day earlier. Bayern’s only loss so far under Nagelsmann, the 2-1 defeat to Frankfurt on Oct. 3, was due in large part to an exceptional goalkeeping performance by Kevin Trapp and offers no real blueprint to would-be challengers. Leverkusen is third.
