Victor Boniface scored a 72nd-minute winner as Bayer Leverkusen completed a 2-1 comeback victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga on Saturday. (More Football News)
Champions Leverkusen, who face Brest in the Champions League next week, missed a fifth-minute penalty through Boniface, but the Nigeria international made amends in the second half to lift Leverkusen up to 14 points in fourth place, leapfrogging Eintracht.
It was a day that also saw RB Leipzig provisionally take over the Bundesliga lead with their 2-0 victory at Mainz.
Leipzig went top on 17 after easing to victory ahead of Bayern Munich, also on 14, taking on Stuttgart later on Saturday.
Leverkusen shot out of the blocks against Eintracht and came close after a minute with a strike from Granit Xhaka.
They were awarded a penalty soon after, but Boniface's weak effort was saved by Eintracht keeper Kevin Trapp.
Eintracht scored first with their own spot kick in the 16th minute with the league's leading scorer Omar Marmoush, who also hit the woodwork, bagging his ninth goal of the top-flight campaign.
The Egypt forward has now scored in six consecutive Bundesliga matches.
Leverkusen's Robert Andrich completed a superb passing move in the 25th minute to draw the hosts level and the Germany international came close to another goal when he rattled the post with a low drive just past the hour.
But it was Boniface who scored the winner, heading in at the far post after Trapp failed to control a cross into the box.
The visitors squandered a golden chance to level deep in stoppage time after a mistake by Leverkusen's Lukas Hradecky, who became the first non-German goalkeeper to reach 300 Bundesliga matches.
But Leverkusen prevailed after defender Jonathan Tah managed to clear the ball off the line.
Data Debrief: Relentless Leverkusen prevail
While the outcome of this match remained uncertain until the final moments and the winning goal came relatively late in the game, Leverkusen deserved their victory.
Marmoush’s goal from the spot was one of only two shots on target the visitors managed, whereas Leverkusen racked up nine attempts on target and had 27 shots overall, accumulating a big expected goals (xG) total of 3.75.
That total of 27 shots is their highest in a league match in 2024-25 and nine of the attempts came from a relentless Boniface, the joint-highest total for any player in a Bundesliga game this season.
Boniface now has a team-high five league goals this season, though even those impressive figures are dwarfed by the brilliant Marmoush, who has racked up nine goals and four assists in his last six top-flight appearances for Eintracht.
