Happy end thanks to Timo Werner: The star striker, who had been hapless for a long time, led RB Leipzig to a very important victory in the Scottish cauldron in the fight for the Champions League round of 16. Before the eyes of future sports director Max Eberl, the DFB Cup winner won 2-0 (0-0) at Celtic Glasgow on Tuesday. With six points from four games, RB jumped to second place and has good chances for the knockout round again.
Werner (75′) and Emil Forsberg (84′) after Werner assisted, scored in front of 60,000 spectators in Celtic Park for Leipzig, who had won the first leg 3-1 the previous week. With two defeats and two wins, RB has every chance of progressing in the remaining two games in Leipzig against Real Madrid (October 25) and in Warsaw against Shakhtar Donetsk (November 2).
“It can be assumed that the mail will go off and it will be wild,” Rose said before the Celtic game – and it started quickly. The Japanese Daizen Maeda (1st) headed just over the RB goal in the first attack. After that, Leipzig controlled the ball without creating any real big chances at the beginning. Meanwhile, Celtic pressed, looked for depth and became immensely dangerous.
Whipped on by the audience, the hosts kept running. RB was lucky that Matt O’Riley (27th) only hit the post from a distance – and Greg Taylor only hit the crossbar in the follow-up shot. RB often lacked the last consequence on the offensive, so that a single action, a shot by Celtic goalkeeper Joe Hart held by Christopher Nkunkus (45th), remained the greatest RB chance of the first half.
After the break, Leipzig got out of the dressing room better, after an attempt by Amadou Haidara, Hart defused the shot from the pursuing Orban (49th). In a game that was as competitive as it was balanced, Werner was also allowed to pull to the goal, but the attacker didn’t make enough of it – for example when Werner’s long-range shot (62nd) bounced off the Celtic defense.
It was Werner, too, who put down for defender Mohamed Simakan (69th) before he chased the ball over the goal. It took just four minutes for Werner to do better after a chip cross from Andre Silva. Celtic didn’t give up after that either, threw everything forward and pressed for the equaliser. Forsberg used the resulting space on the other side.
