Giants such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Zinedine Zidane have all visited Leverkusen as Champions League guests, so the club are no naïve strangers to the competition.
In addition, it is quite early in the season, the time of great emotional eruptions is still a bit away, so it was remarkable that the eyes of some Leverkusen players shone after the 2-0 win against Atlético Madrid, as if they had their dream goal in mid-September reached.
Moussa Diaby, who made it 2-0 (87th minute), couldn't stop grinning, and Robert Andrich carried the silver bullet, which he had received as the best player of the evening, almost with the dignity of an Olympic champion.
"I'm very, very proud of the team," said the scorer of the important 1-0 (84th), "it's really cool that you managed to play the Champions League after the time you fought his way up.” Two professionals have got where they always wanted to be and that gives Leverkusen hope that the whole club will finally arrive this season.
The backdrop of 25,824 spectators was a bit disappointing after the audience had been waiting for such Champions League evenings in their own stadium since 2019 and the Spaniards were also a fairly prominent club.
But those who were there also experienced a great European Cup night in terms of atmosphere.
It was "very noisy in the stadium," said coach Gerardo Seoane, after the crowd had enthusiastically followed the tough first half and grew more and more enthusiastic after the break.
It was “very loud in the stadium”
The goals became thrilling stadium moments.
"Especially in this phase it's really, really good against an opponent like that, where you just have to bring so much team effort onto the pitch," said Jonathan Tah.
The key terms that appeared in the analyzes made it clear which problems Leverkusen were able to free themselves from, at least that evening.
Tah was happy about "a lot of team effort", Andrich said the Werkself "played very, very concentrated" and Seoane praised the "connection between the players, the high level of discipline, a high level of aggression and great solidarity in the team" which was evident in the Subtext means: Something was missing at these points before.
Callum Hudson-Odoi, on loan from Chelsea, made his best game for Leverkusen to date, delivering the penultimate pass to both goals.
Substitute Jeremie Frimpong set up the goals, even Patrik Schick, who was still unlucky, made progress because he worked hard and was unlucky to hit the crossbar.
"This victory is very, very important, especially for the minds," was Andrich's conclusion.
Against Bremen this Saturday they want to finally free themselves from the feeling of crisis of the first weeks of the season, because as nice as this evening was: the Champions League heroes are still in a relegation zone in the Bundesliga.