Bayer 04 Leverkusen 2-4 VfB Stuttgart: Bundesliga Match Report, 31 October 2026

Bayer 04 Leverkusen 2-4 VfB Stuttgart is a hard scoreline to square with the table that preceded it. Leverkusen began the afternoon fourth on 13 points from seven games, goal difference +4, and had won all three of their home matches: 4-0 against Union, 2-0 against Leipzig and 2-1 against Freiburg, with one goal conceded across the three. Stuttgart began it fifteenth on six points, goal difference -3, with five defeats from seven, most recently a 3-2 home defeat by a Mönchengladbach side that had lost all six of its previous games.

Stuttgart led 2-1 at half-time and took the second half 2-1 as well. The order of goals inside each half is not on record, so it cannot be said whether Leverkusen were ever level after the break or how quickly the game got away from them, only that Stuttgart outscored them in both halves of a six-goal match.

There is history behind it. This was Stuttgart's third straight win over Leverkusen, after a 4-1 at the BayArena in January, when they were 4-0 up at half-time, and a 3-1 at home in May. The two meetings before that, in 2024/25, finished 0-0 and 4-3 to Leverkusen, so the run is recent and three games is a small sample, but Stuttgart have now scored four on each of their last two visits to the BayArena.

For Leverkusen it is a second defeat in a row after the 3-0 at Hoffenheim the previous Sunday: seven goals conceded in two games, against nine in their first six.

Leverkusen stay on 13 points from eight games and their goal difference falls from +4 to +2. Stuttgart move to nine, and their -3 becomes -1. The gap between the clubs shrinks from seven points to four, which is the full extent of what one result can do here: 26 rounds remain, and nothing at either end of the table was settled on the last day of October.

A season ago Stuttgart finished fourth on 62 points and Leverkusen sixth on 59, three points apart over 34 games. Seven games into this season Stuttgart had been taking points at under half last season's rate. Nine from eight is still well short of it, about 1.1 points a game against 1.8, but it is a third win, and the first time this season they have scored four away from home.

Leverkusen's start had been running ahead of their 59-point finish. Two defeats in six days, by a combined 7-2, have taken it below that rate, and the home record that had been perfect is perfect no longer.

No preview of ours went out before this match, as the site was dormant over the last weekend of October, so there is no pick to grade, only a result that fits the recent head-to-head better than the table.