Bundesliga
It's not the top-two tussle many would have predicted at the start of the season. Peter Bosz and Bayer Leverkusen have been brilliant so far, though, so how will their key players fare when taking on star-studded defending champions Bayern Munich on Saturday?
The two sides last met in the DFB Cup final on 4 July, when Bayern completed the second part of their fantastic treble of trophies with a 4-2 victory. Five months on, bundesliga.com assesses some of the players who could decide this weekend's encounter at the BayArena.
Leon Bailey vs. Kingsley Coman
Neither Bailey nor Coman got on the scoresheet in the cup final, but both netted in away wins for their sides in the two league meetings between Leverkusen and Bayern in 2019/20.
Bailey stunned the record German champions in November last year with two well-taken first-half goals to give his team a 2-1 win in Munich on Matchday 13. Afterwards the Jamaican said he and his teammates had "left our hearts on the pitch" to secure victory, and that's something they seem to be doing again this season, week in, week out.
Bailey finished each of the last two Bundesliga campaigns with five goals to his name, but he has already got four this term. Then there are the five goals in six UEFA Europa League group stage games that the 23-year-old recorded to set up a last-32 meeting with Young Boys of Switzerland early next year.
The former Genk player's fourth full season in Germany looks set to be his most successful yet, and - with four career goals against Bayern already - the champions have been warned.
With Coman nailed on to start for Bayern, two of the most exciting wingers in Europe will be on show on Saturday evening. The Bayern player is another who has very good figures this season, having managed two goals and seven assists in the Bundesliga so far and three goals in the UEFA Champions League.
Watch: Kingsley Coman, a Bundesliga's Player of the Month nominee in November
The hero of the 2019/20 Champions League final against his former team Paris Saint-German in August, the French speedster netted on Bayern’s last visit to Leverkusen in June.
“When Kingsley's enjoying his football, then he has amazing quality – and that’s currently the case,” Bayern coach Hansi Flick said earlier this week. “He’s a very team-oriented player. He has great quality in one-on-ones and he’s really fast. He’s posting really good numbers in terms of assists and goals right now.”
Florian Wirtz vs. Jamal Musiala
Wirtz also scored in Bayern’s league win in June, coming on at half-time and getting the final goal of the game. That made the midfielder the youngest goalscorer ever in the Bundesliga, and suggested that Leverkusen had been wise to secure his services from Cologne in January.
The 17-year-old had previously replaced Kai Havertz as Die Werkself’s youngest ever debutant, and this season he is doing a good job of compensating for the departure of the 2019/20 Bundesliga Player of the Season nominee to Chelsea, becoming the youngest player in Bundesliga history to score three goals.
He already has four assists in his first full campaign in the German top flight, and his first goal of the season – in the 4-1 home success against Hoffenheim on Matchday 11 – helped Leverkusen leapfrog Bayern at the top of the table.
While Wirtz has been making waves in Leverkusen, Musiala is doing likewise at Munich. He joined the company of Wirtz and six other players to have scored two Bundesliga goals at the age of 17 before getting his third of the campaign in the 3-3 draw with RB Leipzig on Matchday 10.
England U21 cap Musiala has been so good this season that Bayern and Germany legend Lothar Matthäus said he reminded him of himself, while both Flick and teammate Thomas Müller have also praised the youngster’s ability and temperament.
Watch: Musiala leading the Bundesliga's Young Guns
The former Chelsea academy player has already started in the UEFA Champions League against Atletico Madrid, and he is both Bayern’s youngest ever Bundesliga player and their youngest ever goalscorer.
Lucas Alario vs. Robert Lewandowski
Over a third of Leverkusen’s Bundesliga goals in 2019/20 – 22 from 61 - were scored by Havertz and Kevin Volland - two players who left the club in the extended summer transfer window.
Fortunately for Peter Bosz, Alario has stepped up to the plate. The Argentine weighed in with seven league goals last season – including one against the champions - but he had already surpassed that total when he netted with a penalty against Hoffenheim last week.
Watch: Alario - Leverkusen's X-Factor
With former RB Leipzig forward Patrik Schick sitting out seven games in all competitions across October and November, Alario’s influence was all the more important. The 28-year-old had eight goals in as many games at that point - albeit in only six starts - so no wonder Lukas Hradecky says the ex-River Plate frontman is known as ‘Goalario’ by his teammates.
“Lucas knows exactly where the goal is,” the Finland international said. “He has an outstanding goalscoring instinct.”
Another player who fits that description is Bayern star Lewandowski. The five-time Bundesliga top goalscorer had quite the campaign in 2019/20, scoring 55 goals in all competitions and collecting winners’ medals in the league, DFB Cup and Champions League.
The 32-year-old was the leading scorer in all three of those competitions as well, so it was no surprise that he picked up the Bundesliga Player of the Season and UEFA Men’s Player of the Year prizes for his efforts, while being on the three-man shortlist for The Best FIFA Men’s Player, together with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Watch: Lewandowski on his best Bayern goals!
The Poland captain is showing no signs of slowing down. As usual, he raced to a double-figure tally of goals early in the current league campaign, and he has also added three more in the Champions League group stage before hitting his 250th Bundesliga goal in the midweek win over Wolfsburg.
Somewhat strangely, the third-highest goalscorer in Bundesliga history has only ever managed four in 17 league appearances against Leverkusen. One of them came at the BayArena in June, however, and his double a month later in the cup final means he now has three goals in his last two matches against the home side.
Edmond Tapsoba vs. Jerome Boateng
To get to the top of the league, your team usually needs a good defence. Leverkusen’s backline has certainly improved since the arrival of Tapsoba from Vitoria Guimaraes in January.
Just as he did in Portugal – he only broke into Vitoria's first team at the start of last season – the 21-year-old Burkina Faso international is making everything look easy in Germany.
“It’s extraordinary that a player could adapt so quickly to another culture, another country, another language, another footballing philosophy, and other teammates,” Bosz said earlier this season.
Likewise, Hradecky told Kicker that he had never seen a player integrate into a new team as fast. Given that Tapsoba is calm on the ball and also stands out because of his positional awareness and passing accuracy, the Leverkusen netminder is happy to have him around.
“I feel very secure with him, regardless of whether we’re playing a three- or a four-man defence,” the 31-year-old said.
If Tapsoba is the slick new kid on the block, Boateng is the classy comeback king. The 2014 FIFA World Cup winner fought his way back to the Bayern starting XI after Flick took the reins last November, playing a key role in the treble triumph alongside David Alaba in central defence.
“It’s down to his training and his professional attitude,” Flick said in November, when explaining how 32-year-old Boateng had got a new lease of life at the record German champions.
Flick was speaking after Boateng had scored a crucial goal in a 6-2 Champions League win over Salzburg. Already a two-time European champion and an eight-time Bundesliga winner, the former Hertha Berlin, Hamburg, and Manchester City defender seems hungry to add more medals to his extensive collection.