Leverkusen enjoy 'special' Bayern success

That football is and will always remain unpredictable is generally considered a good thing. Maybe FC Bayern München will think differently now that their record start of eight Bundesliga wins has been ended with a 2-1 home defeat by Bayer 04 Leverkusen against all the odds.

Not only had the leaders seemed virtually unstoppable before Sunday's match, but Leverkusen had not won at Bayern since the days of the old West Germany more than 23 years ago, making their victory historic on two levels. "It is a special win," captain Simon Rolfes said. "I have never beaten Bayern with Leverkusen. Our last win was a long time ago. I am happy that this discussion is now over."

Stefan Kiessling, who scored the opener, added: "We fought hard for the win. Maybe it was not really deserved but we all fought and luckily made the second goal." Indeed, Bayern did have more possession, were in command of most aspects of that game and conceded a bizarre own goal by Jérôme Boateng to finally lose the match four minutes from time.

"We conceded an extremely stupid first, worked hard to equalise and then conceded the second which was just as stupid," said Philipp Lahm. "Leverkusen's win is not undeserved, by just scoring those two goals. Maybe we should have been happy with a point after the equaliser but the team wanted to push for the win."

Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes was quick to point out "this defeat will not throw us off track. We will take our lessons from this. We did not manage to score goals when we were in the ascendancy. Nevertheless, we enjoy a comfortable edge in the Bundesliga table".

Some fear that Bayern will suffer a repeat of last November, when they lost a five-point lead over Borussia Dortmund by winning just once in three games, losing to BVB in the process. "We know have to be wary of doing better in November 2012 than we did in November 2011," said Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.

"I already know that next weekend in Hamburg will be a difficult game. We have to show that we are better able to cope with the pressure than the same time last year." Luckily, this time Bayern do not play Dortmund until 1 December and their cushion over the back-to-back champions in nine points.