In just a single seven-minute span, the trajectory of Bayer Leverkusen's season could potentially have been fundamentally altered.
The recent match between Leverkusen and Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich finished in a one-sided 5-1 victory in favour of Bayern. Four of Bayern's five goals came between the 30th and 37th minute, with Serge Gnabry scoring two within that flurry of goals. Robert Lewandowski also scored two goals of his own while Thomas Müller scored Bayern's other goal to ensure that the reigning Bundesliga champions bounced back from their loss to Eintracht Frankfurt in emphatic fashion.
Leverkusen, on the other hand, may have entered the match with a slight, yet an existing, hope of challenging for a first Bundesliga title in the club's history. However, even though Die Werkself still remain just three points behind Bayern in the league, the match made it clear: there's still a chasm between Bayern and Leverkusen.
Realistically, the only team with a chance of dethroning Bayern and denying the Bavarian juggernaut a 10th consecutive league title is Borussia Dortmund simply due to the transcendent talent of Erling Haaland, who, at 21, might already be the best player in the league.
Heading into the season, Leverkusen were arguably the best-positioned of any team other than Bayern or Dortmund to take advantage of any slip-ups by the leading contenders and insert themselves into the title race. This was largely due to RB Leipzig's expected decline following head coach Julian Nagelsmann's departure; Nagelsmann took over in the Bayern dugout during the off-season.
Up to this point, Leverkusen had been keeping pace with the leaders as they started the season strongly. However, the match against Bayern highlighted the true gap in quality between the two teams. It also made this fact abundantly clear: in today's game, you do need that one elite player to build your team around. It's just not enough to have a "solid group of guys".
This is by no means a team without any notable talent. The 18-year-old Florian Wirtz is a likely superstar in the making; he is already the best player on the team. Wirtz is surrounded by a supporting cast including the likes of Moussa Diaby, Lukáš Hrádecký, Kerem Demirbay, and Patrik Schick. On paper, Leverkusen entered the season with a team expected to finish the season in the top four with not only an outside chance of a league title, but more realistically a DFB-Pokal title as well. Leverkusen are probably also the second-most likely to win the Europa League behind Napoli.
It should be noted that during the past off-season, Leverkusen did make one key error in the transfer market. After selling Leon Bailey to Aston Villa for €32 million, they did not use the money to sign any players who would have moved the needle in a meaningful way. Following Bailey's exit, Leverkusen signed Robert Andrich, Piero Hincapié, and Amine Adli; none of these three signings have made a significant impact on the team as of yet.
While it may be true that Leverkusen might inherently find it difficult to attract big names due to both their relative lack of finances and their unglamorous location, they could arguably have done better with what they had at their disposal. For example, Dortmund signed Donyell Malen from PSV Eindhoven for €30 million, while VfL Wolfsburg brought in Luca Waldschmidt for the surprisingly low price of €12 million.
That being said, all is not lost at the BayArena by any means. A season in which Leverkusen finish in the top four in the league and make deep runs in both the DFB-Pokal and Europa League will be regarded as a successful one, and Wirtz might be blossoming into that singular elite talent before our very eyes. Nevertheless, the question remains: when the season ends, could Leverkusen end up thinking "it might have been more than even this"?
As long as the wheels don't fall off, Leverkusen will remain on track to have their best season since 2015-16 when, led by the 17 Bundesliga goals of Javier Hernández, they finished third in the league. They will be competitive all season long, but has the result of this one match changed how they will approach the rest of the season? Only time will tell.
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