Lazio beats Leverkusen 1-0 in Champions League playoff

Leverkusen thought they had taken the lead on 69 minutes when Hakan Calhanoglu’s shot was flicked in by Stefan Kiessling, who was ruled offside.

Lazio’s Senad Lulic, left, and Leverkusen’s Karim Bellarabi jump for the ball during a qualifying round, first leg Champions League soccer match between Lazio and Bayer Leverkusen, at Rome’s Olympic Stadium, Tuesday, August 18, 2015.

Leverkusen has won seven consecutive league matches at BayArena and conceded only one goal.

“I am strongly convinced though that we have been doing good work especially in the last fortnight we have found that consistency which was missing previously”. Now we have the return match where we will try to overturn this result.

“We have worked well in recent weeks and we are pretty confident [of progressing]”. Lazio wasted no time to answer back and Felipe Anderson – the team’s most unsafe player overall – won a duel on the left flank, crossed the ball and found Keita but Leno was magnificent to deny the Senegalese the first goal of the match. “Nothing has been decided yet”.

The Serie A side welcome Leverkusen to the Stadio Olimpico on Tuesday for what will be just their second competitive game of the season.

“All of us know the quality that Klose has got, but we don’t have to be afraid”, he said.

When asked after the clash with Bayer whether he wished to depart the club, the 20-year-old Keita was not forthcoming, per Italian outlet Sport Mediaset (h/t Football Italia), saying, “Let’s talk about matters on the pitch”. “Bruges are a good side, they reached the quarterfinals of the Europa League and finished second in the Belgian League last season”, said Louis Van Gaal when the draw was made.

“Clearly it is excellent to keep a clean sheet at home, as Bayer Leverkusen create many opportunities and caused us problems, but we managed to largely keep them quiet”.

“We proved that we can play at this level and can fight it out with Bayer in Leverkusen”.

“Our opponents beat Atletico Madrid, Benfica and Zenit at home last season, so clearly they are tough, but the lads gave the response we were looking for”.