Gouiri stuns Leverkusen with a screamer as Marseille pull off an unlikely Europa League win

Amine Gouiri showed up from outside the box, settled the ball on his right foot and drilled it into the top corner. Minute 76 at the BayArena. That strike was enough for Marseille to walk away with a 1-0 win over Bayer 04 Leverkusen, a result that leaves the German side without the victory everything suggested they were destined for in the Europa League.

The first half had been a showcase of dominance without reward for Leverkusen. Carles Martínez's side controlled possession, pushed hard down the flanks and created the clearest chance before the break, with a Jarell Quansah effort that skimmed the crossbar in stoppage time. Marseille, coached by Bruno Génésio, answered with a couple of early warnings from Gouiri, including a shot straight at the keeper in the 6th minute, but the scoreboard didn't budge in the first 45: 0-0 at halftime.

The strike that changed everything

In the second half, the match kept following the same script: Leverkusen with more of the ball, Marseille waiting for its moment. Patrik Schick and Robert Andrich both tried their luck without success, while on the other side Igor Paixão and Timothy Weah caused occasional trouble. But it was a single moment that decided everything. In the 76th minute, Gouiri connected on a right-footed strike from outside the area that flew straight into the top corner, with the home goalkeeper unable to do anything about it. It was the only goal of the match.

Leverkusen kept pushing until the final whistle. Edmond Tapsoba had two dangerous headers late on, one of them in the 87th minute that again grazed the crossbar, and even into stoppage time, which ran four minutes, the team kept firing crosses into the box that found no end product. Marseille, with substitutes Alexi Koum and Neal Maupay already on the field, managed the lead until the final whistle.

The numbers behind the sterile dominance

The stats confirm what played out on the field: a Leverkusen side that controlled the match but couldn't turn it into goals.

According to our own expected goals estimate, calculated from the match's shots, Leverkusen generated an xG of 0.97 against Marseille's 0.80. Those are close figures, both just under one, reflecting a match with few clear-cut chances, one in which the visitors made the most of the one they got.

The result stands in stark contrast to what we projected before kickoff: our preview gave Leverkusen a 57% chance of winning, against just 21% for Marseille (22% for a draw), and we estimated a high-scoring game, with 2.28 expected goals for the home side and 1.38 for the visitors. None of that happened: Leverkusen didn't score, the match wasn't high scoring, and the team given the slimmer chances by our model walked away with all three points.

What it means in the standings

The stumble leaves Bayer 04 Leverkusen in 7th place in the Europa League's league phase, with 9 points from four matches played (3 wins and 1 loss). Marseille, meanwhile, remain stuck near the bottom, in 31st place with just 3 points after four matches, with only one win and three losses. The gap between the two sides in the standings is 6 points, but on this night, the team with less to lose was the one that took everything.