The German Cup hands fans another surprise as Bayer Leverkusen were knocked out of the competition by RW Essen.
Party has broken out in Essen as the local club knocked one of the top teams in Germany out of the DFB Pokal. RW Essen defeated Bayer Leverkusen by 2-1 after extra-time. In fact, Leverkusen even managed to get in the lead in the additional period. However, they were surprised by a motivated fourth-tier side who played like it was the last game of their careers.
Oguzhan Kefkir and Simon Engelmann became the new club heroes after sending Essen to the German Cup’s quarter-finals, a competition they won back in 1953. However, the elected man of the match was Daniel Davari, RWE’s goalkeeper who kept the Bundesliga side from scoring many times.
“A game against Bayer Leverkusen is difficult enough anyway – and so was today’s game,” said the goalkeeper. “Then to come back again after a 0-1 deficit, that’s just unbelievable. Of course, we mainly defended. We had to endure many phases. Today luck was on our side, but we also fought like lions. I’m so happy for us as a team, as a club!”
Essen fans will be thrilled as they hadn’t achieved a great cup run since 1994, where they faced Werder Bremen in the final and lost in front of 78,000 spectators. The team made history this Tuesday after their €4 million valued squad defeated a Leverkusen team worth €400 million.
RW Essen, who play in the Regionalliga West division, had already knocked out Bielefeld and Dusseldorf on their way to shock Leverkusen this Tuesday. Now, this cup edition’s underdogs will wait to see who they’ll be facing in the next round.
Moreover, second-tier Holstein Kiel, who had knocked out Bayern Munich in the previous round, have now defeated Darmstadt in another penalty shootout. Therefore, they will also move on to the cup quarter-finals.
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