Honestly I thought Stuttgart would win the match. Because the performance of Stuttgart's players was mixed. And the match was somewhat dominated by Stuttgart's players. More importantly, after Leverkusen's Terrier was red-carded in the 37th minute, Leverkusen had an even tougher task to fend off Stuttgart. The first half ended 1-1, and Terrie received a red card.
Stuttgart had 66% of the ball. The team also created plenty of attacking and scoring opportunities. But in the end, it was Xabi Alonso's match tactics that Stuttgart were defeated by. Xabi Alonso understood well that Leverkusen would concede more goals if they played an attacking strategy with 10 players. So in the second half, Leverkusen played a defensive strategy and played very carefully. Leverkusen conceded the second goal in 63 minutes. But in the 88th minute Patrik's goal equalized the match. Leverkusen eventually won the penalty shootout 4-3. The Leverkusen team was lucky, and Xabi's match strategy was also very good.
I am not surprised by this result because Leverkusen are still the same as last season, they have a strong mentality so it is quite difficult to beat them even though they are under pressure.
Playing with 10 players and trailing by 1 goal but Leverkusen managed to equalize in the final minutes of the match, I think that is extraordinary and we are back to seeing Leverkusen like last season.
Stuttgart played well because they benefited from the excess number of players after Martin Terrier was sent off in the 37th minute which made everything different so that Stuttgart was quite free to control the match but Xabi Alonso knew what to do to be able to win this match, it was really impressive and I like Leverkusen now.
With this result, Xabi Alonso has dismissed many speculations that said that Leverkusen were not capable like last season.