For Manchester United players of a certain vintage, Bayer Leverkusen will forever represent a small club with the capacity to punch well above their weight.
Of the United party who travelled to the small industrial city on Tuesday, Ryan Giggs and assistant coach Phil Neville can remember first-hand, a famous David versus Goliath night 11 years ago, when the Germans gained a place in a Uefa Champions League final at their expense.
Roy Keane, then United’s captain, would record in his memoir his discomfort when both teams lined up for the preambles in the BayArena.
“As we stood for the Uefa anthem before the second leg of the Champions League semi-final with Bayer Leverkusen, one of our players was shaking,” Keane wrote, scornfully. “He was afraid. Played for his country, won championships, big star – afraid of taking the step up.”
United had drawn the first leg in Manchester 2-2; Keane put them ahead in the compact BayArena, but an equaliser ushered Leverkusen to the final, where they would lose 2-1 to Real Madrid. Part of Keane’s point was the incongruity of a United “star” trembling in the relatively unintimidating surroundings of a modest-sized stadium in a city of just over 150,000 people.
Leverkusen’s aura will never be that of a serially successful Bayern Munich, or a Borussia Dortmund, playing at home in front of 80,000 boisterous supporters.
But though they have never again hit the heights of their 2001/02 season – they finished runners-up in the Bundesliga as well as well as the Champions League – they are quietly re-emerging as a potent third force in German football.
Quietly, because the big noise of the Bundesliga is generated by the two clubs who contested the last Champions League final and have divided the past four league titles between them.
When that pair, Bayern and Dortmund met on Saturday, the match dominated the media. With Bayern winning 3-0, Dortmund slipped in the table. Leverkusen, who collected their fifth win in seven matches at Hertha Berlin, are now second.
They are one of only two teams to have taken a point off soaring Bayern this season and the last to have inflicted defeat – all of 13 months ago – on Bayern at Munich.
All feathers in the cap of Sami Hyypia, a coach in his first senior management job. Under his watch, Leverkusen are also supplying more and more players to a German national squad overwhelmingly the domain of Bayern regulars and Dortmunders.
In Germany’s friendly win over England last week, Lars Bender, of Leverkusen, anchored midfield.
The full-back Philipp Wollscheid has been called up this year and midfielder Stefan Reinartz was recently recalled to the national squad after after an absence of several years.
As for Leverkusen’s two leading scorers, they are observed in very different lights by national coach Joachim Low.
Stefan Kiessling, the Bundesliga’s top marksman last season, won the last of his six caps in 2010 but has a fractious relationship with Low. The Leverkusen winger Sidney Sam, who turned down determined efforts by the Nigerian Football Association to have him commit to an international career with them – his father is Nigerian – has been picked five times this year by Low on the basis of his incisive club form.
Hyypia will be without Sam, with a muscle problem sustained at the weekend, and that means rethinking his forward-line for tonight.
“I have an idea what to do,” said Hyypia yesterday.
Options include the Australian striker Robbe Kruse or using the former Germany Under 21 playmaker Gonzalo Castro in a wide position
One of Leverksuen’s fortes has been their speed down the flanks, with Son Heung-min, 21, the expensive South Korean, now beginning to find consistent form on the left. Hyypia is confident “lessons were learned” from the 4-2 defeat to United at Old Trafford in the first match.
“We were a bit anxious,” he acknowledged. “But at home we are strong, so we need to use that.”
Indeed, the 30,000 BayArena has witnessed some stirring performances lately. Since holding Bayern there, Leverkusen have beaten Shakhtar Donetsk 4-0, Augsburg 2-1 and then racked up a 5-3 victory over Hamburg.
That might not make United’s seasoned campaigners tremble when the anthems sound, but it is form to reckon with.
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