Coaching-ground good points: An obsessive coach with an eye fixed for element, Xabi Alonso has taught his Leverkusen squad to play an thrilling, adaptable model of soccer. | Photograph credit score: Getty Photographs
A well-known sight: Leverkusen has celebrated 34 objectives in its 11 Bundesliga video games up to now, a fee of scoring that places it on track for a 100-goal season. | Photograph credit score: Getty Photographs
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 of 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.
Essentially the most heartbreaking of the shut calls was the ‘treble that by no means was’ in 2002, runner-up finishes within the Bundesliga, DFB Pokal and UEFA Champions League. Given the opposite ‘almost moments’, which included letting the league title slip from its grasp on the ultimate day of the 1999-2000 season, it’s no marvel that Leverkusen nonetheless bears deep psychological scars.
Dream starting
However the begin to 2023-24 has allowed Die Werkself followers to dream once more, because of what they’ve seen their group obtain beneath Xabi Alonso, a serial-winner as a participant, now turning heads in his first senior position as head coach.
Earlier than the worldwide break, Leverkusen matched one of the best 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 taking part in for the German powerhouse beneath Pep Guardiola, who oversaw three profitable seasons at Munich.
Certainly, the one factors Leverkusen has dropped got here in a pulsating 2-2 draw at reigning champion Bayern’s dwelling — a outcome described as “honest” by gamers and coaches from each side.
“I believe we performed on the identical stage,” Alonso stated after the draw again in September. “We have now proven persona. We have now proven high quality. We have now proven mentality, and that’s the principle factor to construct on. There’ll come worse moments and that’s when we have to stick collectively.”
The “worse moments” haven’t but come. Leverkusen has received 16 of its 17 matches in all competitions, together with 12 video games in a row in Germany and internationally.
However whereas the followers have begun to imagine that the membership can contend for the title, Alonso isn’t trying too far forward, telling reporters “there’s no certainty about what is going to occur in Could”.
“It’s going to be tough earlier than the winter break,” stated Alonso. “We’ve seen that earlier than, a group performs a very good first spherical however a nasty second spherical, after which all expectations are gone. Hopefully all of the gamers come again match from the worldwide break. The sensation is tremendous in the intervening time.”
Drawing from expertise
Former Arsenal captain Granit Xhaka, now manning Leverkusen’s midfield, informed Sportbild that the “younger facet had the starvation to attain one thing large” however reminded everybody that titles will not be received within the season’s first half. That’s an expertise Xhaka is aware of all too effectively: Arsenal was overtaken by Manchester Metropolis in direction of the tip 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, profitable 11 titles in a row. Ending a monopoly just like the one Bayern has established requires many issues to go Leverkusen’s approach.
Moreover, Die Werkself has been right here earlier than — as just lately as within the Peter Bosz period, Leverkusen went toe-to-toe with Bayern till the winter break however collapsed after that.
However this season feels totally different. And a big a part of that’s due to the kind of soccer the facet has performed in scoring 34 objectives in 11 Bundesliga video games. It’s a method that has confirmed profitable on the high stage; moreover, it captures the creativeness, permitting followers to purchase into the journey.
Alonso’s Leverkusen traces 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 in addition carries loads of venom in transitions and counter-attacks.
This season within the Bundesliga, Leverkusen ranks second for possession (58.6%) and leads in go accuracy (89%), however an actual measure of how dominant its play has been may be had from the truth that no facet has made extra passes within the opposition half (88.6% of three,904 tried).
A squad of younger, formidable gamers has been key to Leverkusen’s rise, with Alonso getting probably 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 within the close-knit squad has performed a task within the seamless soccer the facet performs.
Frimpong stated Alonso’s document as a participant at golf equipment equivalent to Liverpool, Actual Madrid and Bayern, together with the Spanish nationwide group, is a robust inspiration. “You’ve acquired to respect him as a result of he’s been there and achieved it. He’s received all the things, 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 aim, Xhaka within the midfield pivot and Alex Grimaldo at left-wingback.
Leverkusen has been shrewd within the switch market, making certain the lack of winger Moussa Diaby to Aston Villa didn’t damage its goal-scoring prospects. However with as many as 5 gamers doubtlessly leaving for the Africa Cup of Nations within the new yr, Leverkusen, which doesn’t have the depth Bayern has, will discover the going tough. Alonso may also have to rotate his squad, given the calls for of taking part in in Europe as effectively, to handle the workload.
Spectacular turnaround
That is simply the most recent in a sequence of challenges Alonso has confronted in his first job with a membership’s first group after working with reserve and youth squads in Spain. When he took the reins at Leverkusen in October 2022, the facet had slumped to seventeenth within 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 facet to sixth within 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 shortly 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 within the Spanish media that he could possibly be a contender to take over at his outdated membership Actual Madrid when Carlo Ancelotti’s contract runs out on the finish of the season.
That’s a transfer that appears inevitable sooner or later, however Leverkusen followers will fervently hope that Alonso’s younger chargers can have made the ‘Neverkusen’ nickname a factor of the previous by then.
