Bayer Leverkusen trail 2-0, then score five: Nürnberg beaten 5-2 in the DFB-Pokal

Bayer Leverkusen needed less than half an hour at the BayArena to put their own passage into serious doubt. Rafael Lubach opened the scoring for 1. FC Nürnberg in the 13th minute, and Sigurd Haugen doubled it in the 30th. For a stretch of the DFB-Pokal second round, the Bundesliga side looked on course for the kind of early cup exit the competition is built to produce.

It did not happen. Edmond Tapsoba pulled one back four minutes before half-time, added a second early in the restart, and from there Leverkusen simply did not stop. Patrik Schick scored from the penalty spot, Jonas Hofmann made it four, and Lucas Vázquez completed the turnaround in the 89th minute. Final score: 5-2, and a place in the Round of 16.

How the comeback unfolded

1. 13' — Rafael Lubach puts Nürnberg 1-0 up.
2. 30' — Sigurd Haugen makes it 2-0 to the visitors.
3. 41' — Edmond Tapsoba halves the deficit before the break.
4. 49' — Tapsoba scores again early in the second half: 2-2.
5. 70' — Patrik Schick converts a penalty to put Leverkusen ahead for the first time.
6. 78' — Jonas Hofmann adds a fourth.
7. 89' — Lucas Vázquez rounds off the scoring at 5-2.

Tapsoba's goals were the pivot. A centre-back scoring twice to drag his side level against a second-tier opponent two goals to the good is not a small moment in a cup tie — it is the difference between Leverkusen's name going into the hat for the Round of 16 and an early elimination that nobody at the club would have wanted to explain. Schick, Victor Boniface and Ibrahim Maza were all introduced from the bench in the second half, and it was that fresher group that finished the job: Schick's penalty, then Hofmann and Vázquez either side of the final whistle.

Match stats

Leverkusen finished with two bookings, to Ezequiel Fernández (73') and Lucas Vázquez (86'), both coming after the home side had already turned the game around. Giannis Masouras picked up Nürnberg's one caution, in the 81st minute. No red cards were shown.

Line-ups

Bayer Leverkusen (4-2-3-1): Janis Blaswich; Facundo Medina, Edmond Tapsoba, Miguel Gutiérrez; Lucas Vázquez, Malik Tillman, Aleix García, Robert Andrich, Nathan Tella, Afonso Moreira; Jonas Hofmann. Victor Boniface, Patrik Schick, Ibrahim Maza, Jarell Quansah and Ezequiel Fernández came on.

1. FC Nürnberg (4-2-2-2): Jan Reichert; Fynn Otto, Alexios Kalogeropoulos, Andrea Ceresoli, Tim Janisch; Adam Markhiev, Javier Fernández; Sigurd Haugen, William Bøving; Rafael Lubach, Julian Justvan. Giannis Masouras, Piet Scobel, Marc Kornwachs Barjuan, Eric Porstner and Rayan Ghrieb were used from the bench.

A league form line that made the result unlikely

Three days earlier, Leverkusen had lost 0-3 away at TSG Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga — a result that left Xabi Alonso's old side, now coached under a different setup this season, 4th in the table on 13 points from seven games, four back-and-forth draws and losses mixed into their last five fixtures (D W W W L across the archive, scoring 10 and conceding 9 in that run). Falling 2-0 behind to a 2. Bundesliga team on the back of that kind of week is exactly the moment a cup run quietly ends. Instead, Leverkusen scored five against the same opponent that had just put three past Hoffenheim's defenders earlier in the night — proof that whatever went wrong at Hoffenheim's stadium did not survive the trip back to the BayArena.

What's next

Bayer Leverkusen advance to the DFB-Pokal Round of 16, scheduled for 1-2 December 2026. The draw for that round had not been made at the time of writing, so Leverkusen's next cup opponent is still unknown. In the Bundesliga, they sit 4th with 13 points from seven games — firmly in the Champions League qualification picture but with work to do to close the gap on the pace-setters at the top.