When Bayer Leverkusen are on the pitch, the game really isn’t over until the fat lady sings. And while she may have been clearing her throat and practicing her scales as the clock ticked towards 90 at the London Stadium, there was something rather inevitable about Jeremie Frimpong’s deflected equaliser in the dying seconds of normal time in that 1-1 draw with West Ham United.
Leverkusen are, after all, still unbeaten in all competitions across the entirety of 2023/24.
West Ham, meanwhile, are just the latest club who saw their resistance snapped late on against a team who are making quite the habit of last-gasp escapes.
Forget ‘Fergie Time’, this is ‘Xabi’s habit’; the Bundesliga champions doing what they did in both legs of that round-of-16 clash with Qarabag and striking with one of the final kicks of the game.
Xabi Alonso hails West Ham after Leverkusen win
“(We know) that they were going to push us really hard,” sighs Alonso, relieved to see his Leverkusen side extend their staggering unbeaten run to 44 games, speaking on TNT Sports.
Drawn against Roma in the semi-finals and facing second-tier Kaiserslautern in the DFB Pokal decider, Leverkusen are now just four games away from an unprecedented treble.
There was a moment, however, when Alonso’s outstanding side looked destined to end up on the losing side for the first time since May 2023, Michail Antonio guiding home an early header from a glorious Jarrod Bowen cross and Mohammed Kudus causing no end of headaches on the wing.
“To be honest, they had done really well in the first 45 minutes,” says the former Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Spain playmaker. “We had so many problems against their high pressing. They sometimes jumped into a ‘double six’ in midfield (with Edson Alvarez and James Ward-Prowse) and we were not able to find flow.
“So, especially in the first 10, 15 minutes, the momentum from West Ham, they had the feeling they had that. Happily, we had a reaction in the second half. We changed a few things. (But) the first 45 minutes were not easy.”
Leverkusen needed a couple of eye-catching saves from former Manchester United youngster Matej Kovar to keep West Ham at bay, before Frimpong’s late strike ensured that the scoreline would finish 3-1 to the German giants on aggregate.
David Moyes’ European hopes over
“It was key that we didn’t concede the second or third goal,” Alonso adds. “We know the physicality of West Ham, Not just good players like Bowen, Kudus – top, top players – but they are able to play with a lot of physicality.
“Those duels, those second balls, from those situations, they were able to create from there, and that’s where we had so many problems in the first-half.”
West Ham, Europa Conference League champions in 2023, will now have the opportunity to turn their attention to domestic matters, with a continental spot still within reach for David Moyes’ men. Leverkusen or Roma, meanwhile, will face Marseille or Liverpool’s conquerers Atalanta in the final at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium in May.