It’s been a rough season for Bayer Leverkusen. They were supposed to be a good Champions League team. They were supposed to fight for second place in the Bundesliga. They were supposed to progress from last year’s fun and exciting team. This weekend, with Bayern Munich coming to town, they must deal with the fact that absolutely none of those goals have come to fruition.
Bayern Munich vs. Bayer Leverkusen 2017 live stream: Game time, TV channel, and how to watch online
Bayer Leverkusen could get some small amount of salve for a bitterly disappointing season with an upset over Bayern Munich.
Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images
It’s not all Bayer’s fault, of course — they’ve had some brutally bad luck with injuries, and just about every other kind of bad break a team can have has hit them at some time or other. But a number of players who helped carry the team a year ago have seen their form cool significantly — like Javier Hernandez, Hakan Calhanoglu, and Karim Bellarabi, to name a few.
With those players not providing as much to the team this season and others struggling to fill their shoes, Leverkusen’s form and place in the Bundesliga has fallen precipitously. While this weekend’s opponents, Bayern, are cruising along atop the league as normal, Bayer have fallen all the way down to 12th place in the league, and with just a six-point cushion over the relegation zone. They need a surge in confidence and form in a bad way — and a win over a Bayern team reeling from an unexpected Champions League setback at midweek could be just the ticket to get things moving again.
Bayern Munich just got some unfortunate injury news, as well, with Jerome Boateng ruled out for this match with a groin issue. He joins Robert Lewandowski and Mats Hummels in the training room, though Carlo Ancelotti seemed to hope that at least Lewandowski and Boateng could be available for the second leg of their Champions League quarterfinal. Bayer Leverkusen are still without a pair of key midfielders, with the creative Hakan Calhanoglu and workhorse Lars Bender sidelined, as well as defender Jonathan Tah. That’s a tough group of players to face Bayern without, but Tayfun Korkut will do everything he can to get the rest of his team motivated and focused on the task at hand.
Match info, plus how to watch on TV and stream
Match Date/Time: Saturday, 12:30 p.m. ET, 5:30 p.m. local
Venue: BayArena, Leverkusen, Germany
TV: FOX (U.S. - English), Fox Deportes (U.S. - Spanish), Sky Bundesliga 1/HD, TeleClub Sport Live (Germany)
Online: Fox Soccer 2GO, Fox Sports Go (U.S.), Sky Go Deutschland (Germany)
Make friends: Check out Bavarian Football Works for more on Bayern Munich.
Listings for more countries can be found at LiveSoccerTV.
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