#thenewscompany– Germany star Julian Draxler says Wolfsburg can turn things around for Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final, first-leg, at home to Real Madrid despite their 3-0 drubbing at Bayer Leverkusen.
“We played terribly. We were second best in a lot of situations,” said Draxler. “Real Madrid will be a very different game and it’s a different competition. “Our job was to concentrate on Leverkusen, but our performance wasn’t up to scratch.”
Wolfsburg had few answers at Leverkusen’s BayArena on Friday and there was little to suggest they will trouble Real at the Volkswagen Arena in their bid for a semi-final berth. Hosts Bayer dominated with an early goal by winger Julian Brandt before Javier Hernandez came off the bench for the last half an hour to make it 2-0 on 73 minutes with an excellent curling strike in off the far post.
Fellow replacement Vladlen Yurchenko grabbed their third in the dying stages before Chilean midfielder Charles Aranguiz came on to make his debut for Leverkusen. The win lifted Leverkusen to fourth, before Saturday’s fixtures, to keep them on course for a Champions League spot for next season. Wolfsburg are now eighth in the German league, ten points adrift of an automatic place in Europe’s top domestic competition.
“Things don’t look good for us right now. You can’t say we deserve to be higher in the standings than we are right now,” said Draxler. “We’ve got to improve a lot more to compete where we want to be – at the top of the table.” Hernandez was described as “exceptional” by fellow goal-scorer Brandt after his Atlantic odyssey to make the game.
‘Chicharito’ scored for Mexico in their 3-0 win in a World Cup qualifier in Vancouver last Saturday. He came off the bench in the 2-0 victory in Mexico City on Tuesday before jetting home to Germany, but he brushed off his jetlag with a superb goal back in Leverkusen. “It was a very important win for our pursuit of a top-four finish,” said Hernandez, who scored his 15th league goal of the season.
“I travelled a lot during the international break, but I felt good and was pleased to get some minutes under my belt.”
