The Sync: Bayer 04 v. Hannover 96

A hat trick by Patrick Helmes and an unre­lent­ing offense saw Bayer Lev­erkusen take apart Han­nover 96 tonight. The ill­ness and injury rid­dles Reds, were humil­i­ated by Bayer 04, but also their lack of fight as they seemed dis­in­ter­ested in the proceedings.

Bayer have the most fluid attack in the Bun­desliga with Rofles and Augusto quickly becom­ing the top cen­tral tan­dem in the league. Bar­netta, Cas­tro and Vidal are able to spread the game from the chan­nels as well as cut inside. Keissling has the abil­ity to cre­ate from any­where in the final third and Helmes has the pace and fin­ish­ing that has them play­ing like Werder Bre­men (of the past two sea­sons) with a solid defense. And they have some kid in goal, who is sup­posed to be good.

While Augusto and Helmes are get­ting the most atten­tion, the loan deal for Hen­rique was just as impor­tant this past sum­mer for Bruno Lab­ba­dia. The Barcelona player shored up the defense tonight with Frei­drich sus­pended and has played every match so far.

1. Fly Like an Eagle

Last week Rene Adler looked off the boil in the loss to Ham­burg. It was his first game back fol­low­ing his shoul­der injury and he was caught flat footed a num­ber of times. I won­der if an easy game like this, were he was called on at most three times, was good or bad for him. Part of me thinks it gives him a game to get back to match readi­ness. He did show good con­fi­dence and deci­sion mak­ing when he was involved. Plus another game with the Brazil­ian, Hen­rique, will only help their com­mu­ni­ca­tion. How­ever, part of me won­ders if the amaz­ing reac­tion saves will need time to until nor­mal ser­vice is resumed, because he was never called on to make a save tonight.

2. It’s Get­ting Hot in Here

The 28’ minute sub­sti­tu­tion of Valérien Ismael for Frank Fahren­horst, due to an injury might have saved Han­nover more embar­rass­ment. Fahren­horst was the only player for the Reds to come out of this match with a rea­son to hold his head high. When he came on he shored up the defense quickly and his work in the remain­der of the 2nd half kept Han­nover in the game. In the sec­ond half he kept at least two more goals from being scored. Had Ismael not been injured, this could have well been a cricket score. Has he earned a start­ing spot?

3. Han­nover 911

Already strad­dled with a slew of injuries to a small squad in a short week, the flu made the rounds through Hannover’s squad and took out more play­ers includ­ing Mike Hanke. This week Fors­sell was forced out due to a calf injury and Brug­gink was diag­nosed with an infected sole. Add to that, the fact that Ismael and Schlau­draff were injured dur­ing the match and Han­nover 96 is in real trouble.

4. Bro­ken Wings

Tac­ti­cally, Dieter Heck­ing didn’t adjust to his injury/illness cri­sis in the right way. He played Vicinius on the right wing. The big cen­ter half was never con­fi­dent going for­ward and he was unable to cope with the quick attack down the wings by Lev­erkusen. Over on the left, he slot­ted in his holder Hanno Bal­itsch, which left his back four exposed until he brough4 Lala on in the sec­ond half. Bal­itsch looked even more uncom­fort­able on the right than Vicinius did on the left when it came to defending.

In addi­tion, Chav­dar Yankov was obvi­ously another of his walk­ing wounded. Why he removed Huszti, rather than a player who was nowhere near his usual ener­getic self, was odd to say the least.

I think Heck­ing would have been bet­ter off with a 3 man back line with Bal­itsch and Lulu in a dou­ble pivot in front of them. It would have been crude and cyn­i­cal, but when you only have sev­en­teen play­ers fit, there’s no shame in play­ing for a road draw. With this much cover, they could have then deployed Schulz, Huszti, Rausch, Krebs or Pinto to play as mod­i­fied wing­backs. One of the remain­ing could have been the play­maker to link with Stai­jner and Schlaudraff.

5. Hatrick Helmes (SIC)

Last week, there was a dis­cus­sion on Bun­desliga Talk about whether Schlau­draff or Helmes should replace the aging Klose and Neuville and the over­rated Kuranyi for the Ger­man National team. While I don’t agree with Kuranyi’s label, I do agree with the tone of the debate, which is that new for­wards need to be vet­ted. And based on not just a daz­zling per­for­mance tonight by Helmes, but an incred­i­ble start to the sea­son, I think the pickup from Koln wins hands down.

Tagged as: Dieter Hecking, Frank Fahrenhorst, Patrick Helmes, Rene Adler