• Feature: When Saul almost lost a kidney in Leverkusen

The Best Western Leoso Hotel in Leverkusen is about a 15-minute walk from BayArena (30,000 spectators), the venue where Bayer plays its matches. All employees of this hotel carry a team pin on the flap and a flag of the whole city flies at the main entrance. In Leverkusen, everything orbits around the activity of the famous pharmaceutical company that gives its name to the football club (Bayer) and, of course, to the sports entity. And yet, although there live more than 160,000 people, most of the players, without going further their young star Kai Havertz , who missed a game against Atlético by an exam at the institute (2017), reside in Cologne (more than one million inhabitants), just half an hour. So Leverkusen starts to go out as soon as the sun disappears. And in November that happens after 5 pm.

Atletico knows this corner of Germany well because Bayer Leverkusen is the German team that has faced the most times. Tonight will be the eighth duel between the two (Bayern and Borussia Dortmund has been measured six times) and fourth at BayArena, where he only won in 2017 (2-4). All in the second decade of the 21st century. From their first duel in 2010, during the group stage of the Europa League , the rojiblancos have a habit of staying at the Hyatt Regency in Cologne and moving to Leverkusen in time, since traffic usually plays bad passes.

Of that first time only one player survives in both templates. One is Bayer's captain, Lars Bender (30 years old), who defended the left back in the duel two weeks ago in the Metropolitan. In that winter of 2010 he was a youngster who began as a pivot under the orders of Jupp Heynckes . The other, in full psychological war with the goal, is Diego Costa (31), who at that time was trying to make a definitive place in Atlético after a handful of assignments, but could not score in either of the two duels. Quique Sánchez Flores began to give him weight in the team, but he would have to leave on loan to Rayo, a year later, after overcoming a broken cruciate ligament. Nine years ago, life was very different for everyone, especially for Atlético, who roamed the League and walked not stepped on the Champions League for almost four years (2009-2013), already in the second full season of Simeone.

"We must convey security"

Curiously, Costa has not stepped on the BayArena since that distant and cold night of December 2010, where he only played 25 minutes and Atlético, crowned in Hamburg months ago, ended up leaving the competition through the back door. On that icy grass, by the way, the Barcelona-born Arturo Vidal also ran around, who months later would go to Juventus for 12.5 million. In the two Champions League qualifiers against Bayer (2015 and 2017), the rojiblanco forward defended the colors of Chelsea. Although at the end of each course, even during the competition, Simeone kept thinking about him. There was even the odd encounter. Both were missed until, in September 2017, Diego returned to Madrid in exchange for 66 million euros.

That has already been more than two years in which, however, the forward has failed to recover his fiercest scoring version. Unlike. He lives mired in a scoring depression, as he demonstrated only a few days ago in the Sánchez-Pizjuán, where he forgave a penalty and had victory in his boots. In short: two goals in 13 games . "We work to convey to the players safety accordingly with what they have marked in the field. We have to help all the players and we work on that," Simeone explained yesterday, convinced that at any time the best Costa will break in, as in that New Jersey summer derby where he thundered the world (and Real Madrid) with four goals.

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