Hofmann's two goals in three minutes sink OFI as Leverkusen fire 33 shots in rout

Jonas Hofmann needed just three minutes, from the 34th to the 37th, to put the game away at the Pankritio Stadium. Bayer 04 Leverkusen beat OFI 0-2 in the Europa League league phase, with a brace from the German attacking midfielder that confirmed something that had been building since kickoff: the Greek side never found a way to stem the visitors' offensive tide.

The first goal came in the 34th minute: Hofmann finished with his right foot from point-blank range on the right side of the box, after the ball was laid on a plate for him almost in front of goal. Not even three minutes had passed before he repeated the trick, this time from outside the area, with a low right-footed strike that slipped in by the left post off an assist from Malik Tillman. Two quickfire blows that summed up the suffocating control Leverkusen had been exerting since the opening whistle.

Because even before the goals, the match already had just one protagonist. Leverkusen had already given warning through Patrik Schick, Malik Tillman with a header, Jarell Quansah and Afonso Moreira, all trying their luck again and again against a goal that was staying intact more because of the home goalkeeper's saves than any defensive merit. Between the 19th and 32nd minutes, the German side piled up shots almost without pause: Bade, Schick (twice), Tillman, Aleix Garcia, Vazquez, Equi Fernandez. It was a sequence that ended up breaking whatever resistance OFI had left right before halftime.

Numbers that leave no doubt about the dominance

The second half did not change the script. Leverkusen kept generating chances (Facundo Medina, Hofmann, Aleix Garcia, Nathan Tella) without needing to push any harder, managing a lead that already looked more than enough. OFI barely showed up, with a shot from Konstantinos Kostoulas that drew a good save from the visiting goalkeeper and an isolated attempt from Taxiarchis Fountas after coming on, but they never built an attack that truly threatened.

The match statistics capture that gap in intensity with precision:

Thirty-three shots to six says plenty about how the match felt from the stands. Our own estimate of xG generated in the match, calculated from those shots, puts the figure at 3.53 for Leverkusen against just 0.26 for OFI, a gap that confirms the final score, far from being tight, actually undersold the sheer volume of chances the German side created.

What the preview said and what actually happened

The projection published before the match gave Leverkusen a 65% chance of winning, with 14% for OFI and a 21% chance of a draw, with expected goals of 2.27 for the visitors and 1 for the home side. The result ended up matching that forecast in terms of the winner, though the actual match was even more one-sided than those numbers suggested: OFI never came close to scoring, and Leverkusen turned in a performance that comfortably exceeded what was expected of their attack.

In the standings, the win leaves Bayer 04 Leverkusen on 9 points from 3 matches played, sitting in the upper reaches of the group. OFI, for their part, have 3 points from the same 3 outings, with this defeat adding to a tough start to the league phase. The points gap between the two sides in the table now stands at 6, a fairly accurate reflection of what played out on the pitch at the Pankritio Stadium.