Training-ground positive factors: An obsessive coach with a watch for element, Xabi Alonso has taught his Leverkusen squad to play an thrilling, adaptable model of soccer. | Photo credit score: Getty Images
A well-recognized sight: Leverkusen has celebrated 34 objectives in its 11 Bundesliga video games thus far, a fee of scoring that places it on track for a 100-goal season. | Photo credit score: Getty Images
In soccer, nicknames typically stick — particularly the merciless ones, coined by rival followers.
Bayer Leverkusen supporters haven’t lived down an annoyingly apt nickname for a number of years: ‘Neverkusen’, due to all the close to misses the North Rhine-Westphalia membership has endured throughout the 30 barren years since its final trophy, the 1992-93 DFB Pokal.
The most heartbreaking of the shut calls was the ‘treble that never was’ in 2002, runner-up finishes in the Bundesliga, DFB Pokal and UEFA Champions League. Given the different ‘nearly moments’, which included letting the league title slip from its grasp on the closing day of the 1999-2000 season, it’s no marvel that Leverkusen nonetheless bears deep psychological scars.
Dream starting
But the begin to 2023-24 has allowed Die Werkself followers to dream once more, due to what they’ve seen their workforce obtain underneath Xabi Alonso, a serial-winner as a participant, now turning heads in his first senior position as head coach.
Before the worldwide break, Leverkusen matched the greatest ever begin to a Bundesliga season, with 31 out of 33 factors after a 4-0 win over Union Berlin in Gameweek 11. That equalled Bayern Munich’s document from 2015-16 — again when Alonso was an aesthetic midfielder enjoying for the German powerhouse underneath Pep Guardiola, who oversaw three profitable seasons at Munich.
Indeed, the solely factors Leverkusen has dropped got here in a pulsating 2-2 draw at reigning champion Bayern’s dwelling — a end result described as “fair” by gamers and coaches from either side.
“I think we played on the same level,” Alonso stated after the draw again in September. “We have shown personality. We have shown quality. We have shown mentality, and that’s the main thing to build on. There will come worse moments and that’s when we need to stick together.”
The “worse moments” haven’t but come. Leverkusen has gained 16 of its 17 matches in all competitions, together with 12 video games in a row in Germany and internationally.
But whereas the followers have begun to consider that the membership can contend for the title, Alonso isn’t wanting too far forward, telling reporters “there’s no certainty about what will happen in May”.
“It’s going to be difficult before the winter break,” stated Alonso. “We’ve seen that before, a team plays a good first round but a bad second round, and then all expectations are gone. Hopefully all the players come back fit from the international break. The feeling is super at the moment.”
Drawing from expertise
Former Arsenal captain Granit Xhaka, now manning Leverkusen’s midfield, instructed Sportbild that the “young side had the hunger to achieve something big” however reminded everybody that titles will not be gained in the season’s first half. That is an expertise Xhaka is aware of all too effectively: Arsenal was overtaken by Manchester City in the direction of the finish of the 2022-23 Premier League season.
It’s no shock that Alonso and his on-field lieutenant have struck a notice of warning. Bayern has dominated the Bundesliga, successful 11 titles in a row. Ending a monopoly like the one Bayern has established requires many issues to go Leverkusen’s approach.
Besides, Die Werkself has been right here earlier than — as not too long ago as in the Peter Bosz period, Leverkusen went toe-to-toe with Bayern till the winter break however collapsed after that.
But this season feels totally different. And a big a part of that’s due to the kind of soccer the aspect has performed in scoring 34 objectives in 11 Bundesliga video games. It’s a mode that has confirmed profitable at the prime stage; moreover, it captures the creativeness, permitting followers to purchase into the journey.
Alonso’s Leverkusen strains up in a nominal 3-4-3, attacking with 5 and defending with 5 like lots of the elites do. It performs an thrilling model of soccer that’s adaptable: it dominates the ball with slick passing but additionally carries loads of venom in transitions and counter-attacks.
This season in the Bundesliga, Leverkusen ranks second for possession (58.6%) and leads in cross accuracy (89%), however an actual measure of how dominant its play has been may be had from the incontrovertible fact that no aspect has made extra passes in the opposition half (88.6% of three,904 tried).
A squad of younger, bold gamers has been key to Leverkusen’s rise, with Alonso getting the most out of the likes of German playmaker Florian Wirtz, speedy Dutch right-wingback Jeremie Frimpong and Nigerian striker Victor Boniface. The chemistry between the gamers in the close-knit squad has performed a job in the seamless soccer the aspect performs.
Frimpong stated Alonso’s document as a participant at golf equipment corresponding to Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern, together with the Spanish nationwide workforce, is a robust inspiration. “You’ve got to respect him because he’s been there and done it. He’s won everything, the Champions League and the World Cup,” Frimpong stated.
Alonso has additionally ensured there are skilled heads to information the younger expertise on the pitch, with Lukas Hradecky in purpose, Xhaka in the midfield pivot and Alex Grimaldo at left-wingback.
Leverkusen has been shrewd in the switch market, guaranteeing the lack of winger Moussa Diaby to Aston Villa didn’t harm its goal-scoring prospects. But with as many as 5 gamers doubtlessly leaving for the Africa Cup of Nations in the new 12 months, Leverkusen, which doesn’t have the depth Bayern has, will discover the going troublesome. Alonso may even have to rotate his squad, given the calls for of enjoying in Europe as effectively, to handle the workload.
Spectacular turnaround
This is simply the newest in a collection of challenges Alonso has confronted in his first job with a membership’s first workforce after working with reserve and youth squads in Spain. When he took the reins at Leverkusen in October 2022, the aspect had slumped to seventeenth in the 18-team league. Alonso had just one win from his first seven video games in all competitions however turned it round spectacularly.
From guiding the aspect to sixth in the Bundesliga and the semifinals of the Europa League in his first season in cost, Alonso has pushed Leverkusen to the summit of the German top-flight this season. Unsurprisingly, the membership acted rapidly in August to tie him up till 2026, agreeing a two-year extension of his contract.
Equally unsurprisingly, Alonso’s early success has fuelled hypothesis in the Spanish media that he may very well be a contender to take over at his previous membership Real Madrid when Carlo Ancelotti’s contract runs out at the finish of the season.
That’s a transfer that appears inevitable in the future, however Leverkusen followers will fervently hope that Alonso’s younger chargers could have made the ‘Neverkusen’ nickname a factor of the previous by then.
