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BAYER 04 LEVERKUSEN - EINTRACHT FRANKFURT

Facts & Figures

Eagerly awaited the second half of the season will kick off on Saturday for Eintracht - away to Bayer Leverkusen who are ranked second, two spots ahead of SGE. Read all the facts and figures about the match.

Eintracht skipper Pirmin Schwegler will return to his old playing ground

HISTORY

• Eintracht and Bayer have met in 55 Bundesliga matches so far and once in the DFB Cup.
• The two have a pretty even record: 20 Eintracht wins, 23 defeats, 12 draws.
• The record of the last 10 meetings is even also: 4 wins each, 2 draws.
• This fixture never ended with a 0-0 score line.
• Pretty much exactly 30 years ago Eintracht travelled to Leverkusen in January also. The match on 29/01/1983 was a 1-1 draw with Bum-Kun Cha scoring for SGE (he later played for Bayer).
• The Eagles are ranked 10th in the Bundesliga all-time standings, Bayer follow one spot behind on 11.
• Eintracht played their best first season half since 1993: 17 matches, 9 wins, 30 points, 33 goals.

SEASON

• SGE’s 2-1 win on matchday 1 against Leverkusen was the first defeat of ‘Die Werkself’ under the reign of their coaching duo Lewandowski/Hyypiä.
• The two are unbeaten at home even with their team – 10 wins and 4 draws in 14 competitive home matches.
• Eintracht (now 4th) have been in Bundesliga’s top 4 on 15 of 17 matchdays. Leverkusen (now 2nd) have been in the top 4 on 5 of 17 matchdays.
• Bayer won 7 of their last 9 league games, they are currently the in-form team of the league.
• Both teams scored 33 goals so far – only Bayern and Dortmund scored more.
• Bayer are the only team that is still unbeaten at home this season. Alongside Eintracht and Bayern they are the best home team – all three collected 20 points so far.

INDIVIDUALS

• Clash oft he top scorers: Stefan Kießling scored the most goals so far (12), Alex Meier the second most (11).
• 11 goals are Meier’s personal Bundesliga record (so far he scored a maximum of 10 per season). On matchday 17 Meier scored his 43rd Bundesliga goal for Eintracht moving into the top 10 of the club’s all-time top scorers. Only 4 Eintracht players had managed to score double figures in the first season half before.
• Former Bayer player Bastian Oczipka recorded the most ball touches for Frankfurt (1259, 7th most in the league). He assisted 7 goals, joint most in Bundesliga.
• Eagles skipper Pirmin Schwegler also had a spell at Bayer between 2006 and 2009 (46 matches).
• There have been various SGE and Bayer double agents in the past such as Bum Kun Cha, Christoph Preuß, Jermaine Jones, Ingo Herztsch amongst others.
• The match will be the 50th Bundesliga appearance of SGE goalkeeper Kevin Trapp.
• According to the player grades of kicker magazine Trapp is the second best Bundesliga player of the „Hinrunde“, 4 times he was in kicker’s team of the week.

Sources: Impire - kicker - eintracht.de

(HR - 17.01.2013)