It could have been his holiday.

But his brilliant deeds were not enough in the end to help his team win.

And so Yann Sommer was the sad hero of Borussia Mönchengladbach on Saturday evening, even though he saved two penalties in the duel with Bayer 04 Leverkusen.

Easy to win, easy to lose - that's what happened to the "Fohlenelf", who had won 2-1 at champions and Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich a week earlier and this time lost 2-1 to third-placed in the league.

A defeat that not even the Swiss all-rounder could prevent due to the lack of attention in the Gladbach defense zone. Because the colleagues savored their joy at Sommer's first penalty when Schick shot the left corner after Friedrich's mini foul on Bellarabi, nobody was with Andrich after the goalie's rescue flight. He took advantage of Gladbach's confusion after the following corner kick to make it 1-0 for his team.

When Schick scored his 18th goal of the season after a free kick (74th) after another allocation error in the Borussia defense (74th), Sommer alone remained one hundred percent focused despite the now significant deficit and was there a second time as a rescuer in need when he Demirbay's penalty after Beyer's misstep against Wirtz was also parried with his flight into the left corner of the goal (87').

It was already 1:2 after Elvedi's goal (81st minute), but the last push from their fabulous goalkeeper didn't give Borussia any lasting boost.

And so Sommer said when he looked at twelfth place, which Mönchengladbach was in after 19 games close to the relegation zone: "We are where we are - and rightly so."

"Mental strength as the most important quality"

A little more of Yann Sommer's single-minded work mentality would have served his colleagues well. They tried as hard as they could, but seemed too tense in front of their own and the opponent's goal to find better solutions than on Saturday evening in Borussia Park. After last season, no one would have believed that the only 1.83 meter long summer who came to Mönchengladbach from FC Basel in 2014, along with all his other qualities - nerves of steel, anticipation, inner and outer calm - is now also considered a "penalty killer". .

Until then, Sommer had only saved four of 55 penalties against Borussia – the first in February 2017, when he made Mexican Marco Fabio’s penalty his top priority in Frankfurt. At least since the summer in the round of 16 of this year's European Championships, when he won the decisive penalty shoot-out in a duel with the French superstar Mbappé and thus helped Switzerland to reach the quarter-finals of a major tournament for the first time in 67 years, this extraordinary goalkeeper is also a great player in this sub-discipline Sports.

Patrick Foletti, his goalkeeper coach in the "Nati", says about the number one in Switzerland and at Borussia Mönchengladbach: "Yann's most important quality is the mental strength to be able to play at the highest level every third day. He really knows how to deal with this pressure like no other.” The Spanish penalty king Sergio Ramos also felt this in the Nations League in 2020, who twice despaired of Sommer’s flying skills in Basel.

The last time in the Bundesliga was the then Nuremberg keeper Raphael Schäfer who managed to save two penalties in one game in February 2014, when he blocked the shots by Kumbela and Bicakcic in the game against Eintracht Braunschweig. This time Sommer was well prepared twice, especially since he found out during his research on the shooter Demirbay that he prefers to aim for the bottom right corner when taking penalties.

"I try to radiate calm during a penalty, to make sure that the opponent doesn't feel good," the Gladbach keeper once described his psychological strategy.

It has been so convincing since this year that fans of Borussia Mönchengladbach in a social media forum, looking at the famous goalkeeper's contract, which expires in 2023, asked their club to sign a "lifelong contract" with Yann Sommer soon.