Bochum 0-5 Bayer Leverkusen
BAYER LEVERKUSEN STRETCHED their season-long unbeaten run to 50 games with a 5-0 win at 10-man Bochum on Sunday.
Bochum defeated a 10-man Leverkusen in May 2023, the last side to beat Xabi Alonso’s side in any competition, but the tables turned on Sunday with Leverkusen’s goals coming from five different scorers.
Alonso’s league champions are just one game away from the first unbeaten Bundesliga season and three games from a remarkable treble.
Within three days in late May, Leverkusen face Atalanta in the Europa League final in Dublin before taking on second-division Kaiserslautern in the German Cup final.
Bochum lost a man early when Felix Passlack saw red for a last-man foul on Nathan Tella.
With attacking midfield maestro Florian Wirtz missing through injury, Alonso started strikers Victor Boniface and Patrik Schick and both had a goal by half-time.
Schick blasted in an Arthur cross with a superb first-touch finish after 41 minutes. Boniface converted a penalty five minutes later after Tella was fouled in the box.
Amine Adli, brought on for Schick with 20 minutes remaining, headed in a corner to make it 3-0.
Josip Stanisic, who scored in stoppage time to keep Leverkusen’s unbeaten run alive against Roma in the Europa League on Thursday, added a fourth with three minutes remaining before setting up Alex Grimaldo’s goal in the final moments.
Elsewhere, Thomas Tuchel’s heavily changed Bayern Munich made short work of Wolfsburg at home, winning 2-0 to leapfrog Stuttgart into second spot.
Tuchel made eight changes to the side eliminated from the Champions League with a 2-1 loss at Real Madrid on Wednesday, with England captain Harry Kane, out with back issues, missing his first league match of the season.
If the England captain returns next week, Kane — currently on 36 league goals this season — will have just one match remaining to try and reach Robert Lewandowski’s all-time record of 41.
The win sends Bayern two points clear of Stuttgart in second with one game remaining.
