The new signings Nico Schlotterbeck and Karim Adeyemi had goosebumps before the match, the bosses praised the commitment levels, and Gregor Kobel said: "That's what I'm there for, to save shots." The match reactions.

Edin Terzic: "We didn't make a good start to the game and lost the ball unnecessarily several times in the opening minutes, but then we got a hold of ourselves and noticed after a while that interesting spaces were opening up in the wide areas. It then became an intense match from both teams; Leverkusen had more of the game in the second half. The way in which we defended our goal makes us feel positive. That's when the energy spread to the stands and back again. Sometimes it's not possible to score more than one goal – and then you need to be capable of keeping a clean sheet in order to get the three points. But we have also come away with some things to work on in training in the coming days."

Sebastian Kehl: "We took a big step forward today. We worked hard, fought, scratched, bit. If we had not resisted with intensity, we wouldn't have won. It was a deserved victory in the end. We want to reignite the spark here and have a special season. The front of Karim Adeyemi's foot is swollen. We'll conduct a diagnosis tomorrow."

Karim Adeyemi: "I'm already doing better and I hope it's nothing dramatic. Crazy, when I came in here I already had goosebumps during the warm-up. It was a real battle today, it wasn't so easy on a footballing level because Leverkusen resisted well. That's not the way we want it to be. We want to have more ball possession and be more dominant."

Nico Schlotterbeck: "A clean sheet and a victory: long may that continue. It was an imposing first half from us; the second was then a bit jittery. But one must also admit that Leverkusen are a really good team. They played well and made life difficult for us. We defended for almost the entirety of the second half. I've been looking forward to this match in front of the Yellow Wall for an awfully long time. It felt how I imagined it would – and to round it off with a victory feels even nicer."

Gregor Kobel: "I'm happy that we picked up our first three points and that we kept a clean sheet. That makes me super happy. It was a mega atmosphere. It was unbelievably fun to play in front of our fans. It does us good to have this support and to know we have the people behind us. This is exactly the energy we need."