German champions Bayer Leverkusen have one leg in this year’s UEFA Europa League final after the Bundesliga club defeated last season’s finalists Roma 2-0 in the first leg of their semi-final tie in Italy on Thursday night.
The win extended Xabi Alonso’s side’s unbeaten record to 47 games across all competitions. They look to complete a treble this season after already being crowned the German champions and are in the final of the DFB-Pokal against FC Kaiserslautern.
Forward Florian Wirtz opened the scoring for Bayer Leverkusen in the 28th minute after Roma defender Rick Karsdorp’s miscalculated pass was hijacked by Alejandro Grimaldo, who laid a perfect pass to Wirtz.
Earlier, Romelu Lukaku almost equalised with Roma afterwards, but the Belgian striker’s powerful header rocketed the crossbar.
Bayer Leverkusen sealed the away win in the 73rd minute through Robert Andrich, who fired Josip Stanisic’s assist from a long distance into the top-left corner of the net to give the Company’s Eleven a huge advantage going into the second leg at home.
Meanwhile, everything is still up to be played for in the second Europa League semi-final tie as Ligue 1 outfit Marseille and Italian side Atalanta settled for a 1-1 draw in France on Thursday.
The two goals came inside the opening 30 minutes of the encounter with Gianluca Scamacca putting Atalanta the lead in the 11th minute before Chancel Mbemba canceled out the advantage nine minutes later.
Both teams will face each other in the second leg in Italy next week Thursday.
