Football
Stephan Uersfeld, Germany correspondent 7y

Bayer Leverkusen's penalty problems persist in RB Leipzig loss

Bayer Leverkusen's penalty woes continued in Friday's 3-2 defeat to league leaders RB Leipzig as they failed to convert their third spot kick this season.

Leverkusen held a 2-1 lead over Leipzig when they were awarded a penalty in the 54th minute.

However, Turkey international Hakan Calhanoglu's weak shot to the bottom-right corner was parried by keeper Peter Gulacsi, and Leipzig went on to seal their sixth consecutive win and moved top of the league.

Calhanoglu became the third Leverkusen player to miss from the spot after Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez and Charles Aranguiz missed the club's two previous penalties this season in the loss against Eintracht Frankfurt and the draw with Augsburg respectively.

"I'd like to think that all of them wanted to score," Leverkusen coach Roger Schmidt told his postmatch news conference. "If we converted every penalty, we'd have four more points. We'll try to work on it in training and find the right taker. And I am convinced that we'll score from the spot again."

Leverkusen also crashed out of the DFB Pokal after a penalty shootout loss to third-tier side Sportfreunde Lotte in late October, and since April 2012 they have only converted eight of a total of 18 penalties in Bundesliga.

Stefan Kiessling scored six, while Hernandez and Calhanoglu both had one successful attempt. However, the Turkey international missed a total of three penalties, with the other seven misses spread out across six players including Kiessling and Andre Schurrle.

Leverkusen are currently ninth in the Bundesliga, and next weekend travel to the Allianz Arena to play Bayern Munich, who have won only two of their last six league games.

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