The Spanish coach has just made history - and in some style - with a team that was battling relegation when he took over 18 months ago
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Former Bayer Leverkusen sporting director Reiner Calmund once said that in the cruel and unforgiving world of football, "You are worth nothing without a title." And his club didn't have one. They just had a nickname: 'Vizekusen', which literally translated as 'Secondkusen'. In English, though, Bayer were better known as 'Neverkusen', the German game's eternal bridesmaids, a seemingly cursed club incapable of escaping its painful past.
In the space of six seasons around the turn of the century, Leverkusen finished as runners-up four times. In 2000, they threw away the title despite only needing a draw in their final game, against SpVgg Unterhaching, a club best known for its bobsleigh team. Bayer buckled under the pressure again two years later, losing two of their final three games to hand the league to Borussia Dortmund.
Leverkusen really outdid themselves in 2001-02, though. A week after their Bundesliga blow, they suffered a demoralising 4-2 defeat to Schalke in the DFB-Pokal final. Four days later, Bayer were beaten by Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League, victims of a Zinedine Zidane wonder-goal.
Manager Klaus Toppmoller had called for celebratory wine and cigarettes after the shock semi-final win over Manchester United but, in Glasgow, he was almost reaching for the painkillers after a terrific team containing great players like Lucio, Michael Ballack and Ze Roberto ended a sensational season empty-handed.
"I am proud of what we have achieved this season, but we have played so hard and it hurts us to end with nothing," he told reporters. "The disappointment is huge - you don't always get the rewards you deserve in football, and no-one knows that better than us after what we have been through. What has happened to us is difficult to take and makes us feel bitter."
Leverkusen would finish second again in 2010-11, for the fifth time in the club’s history, although at least on that occasion there was no devastating collapse. Nonetheless, the ‘Neverkusen’ nickname endured. It became part of the club’s culture.
Bayer continued to produce world-class players. but success remained just as elusive. “The quality has always been there in Leverkusen,” Ballack lamented in an interview with 11Freunde, “but something has always been missing." That something, it turns out, was Xabi Alonso, who has just led Leverkusen to their first ever Bundesliga title with five games to spare.
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'Bet he will be good'
On the day that Xabi Alonso brought the curtain down on his illustrious playing career, Pep Guardiola, his former boss at Bayern Munich, lamented the loss of “one of the best midfielders” he’d ever seen - but immediately reassured the world of football: “He will come back soon as a manager and, wherever he goes, I bet that he will be good.”
Alonso hasn’t just lived up to Guardiola’s expectations, though; he’s surpassed them. Indeed, when asked about the job his former charge was doing at Leverkusen, the Manchester City manager simply smiled, paused for a second and then just said, “Wow!”
Jurgen Klopp, meanwhile, has called Alonso "the standout” among the next generation of game-changing tacticians, which is why Liverpool tried to hire him as the German's successor, while Bayern wanted him to clean up the mess Thomas Tuchel is going to leave behind at the Allianz Arena this summer. Given he's now decided to stay at the BayArena for another season, Real Madrid will likely try to bring Alonso back to Santiago Bernabeu next summer. Quite simply, there really is no more coveted coach in world football at the moment.
It’s funny, then, to think that while Leverkusen’s appointment of Alonso in October 2022 was considered quite the coup for the struggling German club, it was also met with some “scepticism”.
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'Got to respect him'
“We were in a difficult situation and saw in Xabi a world star, but also an inexperienced coach who had not yet been in charge of a top team,” Leverkusen sporting director Simon Rolfes said of the former Real Sociedad B-team boss. “Nevertheless, I was convinced of his ability from the start - and Xabi was convinced of the quality of our squad.”
Most importantly of all, the players were immediately convinced by the coach. Being a serial-winner played a pivotal role in that regard.
"You've just got to respect him because he's been there and done it,” Jeremie Frimpong told the Associated Press. “He's won everything: Champions League and World Cup. As a footballer, to have a manager like we have, we're very grateful. And he knows how to use the team. He knows our abilities, our weaknesses."
Indeed, while Leverkusen’s potential was obvious as they climbed from second-bottom to sixth by the end of the 2022-23 season, Alonso knew that reinforcements were required. With so many promising players, he had the makings of a great team, but he needed experienced, proven performers.
So, last summer, he welcomed Granit Xhaka from Arsenal with open arms, while also adding veteran winger Jonas Hoffman, a genius free transfer from Hoffenheim, and Alex Grimaldo, who had spent the previous seven seasons winning trophies at Benfica. Alonso was also acutely aware that his team lacked a prolific No.9, so in came Victor Boniface from Union Saint-Gilloise.
In total, Leverkusen spent €90 million (£77m/$97m) on new players, but their net loss was just €20m (£17m/$21m), given the sale of their best player, Moussa Diaby to Aston Villa, had accounted for nearly two-thirds of their summer outlay.
Even more impressively, nearly every new signing was a success.
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Coping with adversity
Boniface had only scored nine times the previous season in Belgium, but the Nigerian proved the perfect striker to spearhead Alonso's 3-4-2-1 formation, involved in 24 goals, 16 of which he scored himself, before injury interrupted his season in December.
Losing such a talisman would have devastated most sides - imagine how much worse Bayern Munich would be doing without Harry Kane - but Leverkusen found a way to keep winning, with winger Amine Adli emerging as an excellent alternative up front.
Alonso made excellent use of his full panel of players in the Europa League, and saw Czech striker Patrik Schick slowly but surely rediscover his best form after injury.
Defender Josip Stanisic and winger Nathan Tella also benefited from game time in continental competition, thus emerging as strong starting options in the Bundesliga.
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Peak of their powers
The more senior stars also proved their worth as Bayer continued to fight on three fronts, reaching the last eight of the Europa League and the final of the DFB-Pokal while running away with the league.
Xhaka is arguably playing the best football of his career alongside the all-action Argentine Exequiel Palacios. Grimaldo, meanwhile, has featured in more games this season than any other Leverkusen player and, in conjunction with Frimpong, forms the most productive wing-back pairing in world football (48 goal involvements between them!).
After a stunning start, Hoffman's form tailed off a tad in recent months, but he was back at his best in the Europa League win over West Ham on Thursday and has now contributed eight goals and as many assists, while only Grimaldo and the phenomenal Florian Wirtz have created more chances for Leverkusen.
The latter's form has been truly astounding. It was known for some time that Wirtz was a special talent, but the 20-year-old is arguably the best No.10 in Europe right now. As well as scoring 17 goals, he's also created 18 - four more than any other player across the 'Big Five' leagues, which also helps illustrate Leverkusen's outstanding offensive game (only Liverpool and Manchester City have racked up more league goals this season).
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'Always working'
However, one of the keys to Leverkusen's rapid rise is their incredible improvement in defence. Alonso inherited a brittle backline from predecessor Gerardo Seoane, one that was conceding an average of two goals a game. However, his switch to a three-man defence proved a masterstroke, revitalising the career of Jonathan Tah, who is now back in the Germany squad, and taking Edmond Tapsoba, Odilon Kossounou and Piero Hincapie to a whole new level.
The net result is Leverkusen are now the meanest team in Germany. They have shipped just 19 goals so far this season, which is 17 fewer than second-placed Bayern, and Tah says the transformation is all down to Alonso.
"The coach is always working on this with us defenders," the centre-back told Die Zeit. "He is not someone who stands on the sidelines, remains silent and watches. [He intervenes], regardless of how prominent a player is. There aren't many coaches who can do that, simply because they weren't able to play football as well as he did!"
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'Relationships before tactics'
Club CEO Fernando Carro has also hailed the way in which Alonso's "meticulous, analytical and self-assured approach" has really resonated with the players. But from listening to them talk, it's obvious that there's more to Leverkusen's title triumph than simply following instructions. As Alonso said himself, "The coach has an idea and the players must believe him. This is why human relationships come before tactics."
Tellingly, Grimaldo says that he and his team-mates always remain "loose and calm", no matter the circumstances, because of the confidence that Alonso has instilled in them. That's why Leverkusen are the only unbeaten team left in Europe this season. They've outbattled as many teams as they've outplayed, resulting in a string of late comebacks.
Winger Adli even admitted, "We always have the feeling that we are not going to lose." And they haven't. The team that couldn't win now can't be beaten. They have "soul", as Alonso says, the utmost faith in their football.
"I have not for a long time seen a side that are so confident on the ball, determined, quick and tactically so superb," an incredibly proud Toppmoller said earlier this week. "My former club has a huge chance to put the name Vizekusen behind them."
On Sunday, they did exactly that, by denying Bayern Munich a 12th consecutive German title. The curse has been broken - and while playing the most beautiful football. It's 'Neverkusen' no more, then. Bayer have a proper title now: 2023-24 Bundesliga champions. And this one will last forever.
- Mark Doyle
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