German soccer champions Bayer Leverkusen: It’s a first for the club, for Xabi Alonso it’s the 19th major title and yet such a special one. The first as a coach. The early German championship crowns someone who has the football world wrapped around his finger. And that is just the beginning.
Josip Stanisic has the first beer shower in the cabin. It is the defender who is the first to approach coach Xabi Alonso and shower him. Later at the press conference comes the second one – from the entire team, which almost obligatorily storms the podium when winning football titles. Baptized as German Champion. The first reward for a fabulous season for Bayer Leverkusen in which there was no defeat.
Alonso’s celebration plans include more beer, albeit drunk and not as a shower: “A lot of beer, German beer, tomorrow is free. In football sometimes everything is fast, but today we have to stop and enjoy.” “King When referee Harm Osmars blew the final whistle, he was still relatively calm as he disappeared in the storm after Florian Wirtz’s hat trick. Then he stands cheering, looking at the stands, in front of the masses of photographers and taking many souvenir photos himself.
All previous warnings have been thrown overboard. Two more titles are still up for grabs, the next important game is on Thursday when Leverkusen travel to West Ham United for the quarter-final second leg of the Europa League (9 p.m./RTL and in the ntv.de live ticker). Alonso and those responsible for the club said in advance that they didn’t want to celebrate so much. Things quickly sounded very different on Sunday evening. “I think there is no end to today. We have tomorrow off, everyone can decide how long they want to do today,” said Wirtz. Success is where the dribbling artist is. At just 20 years old, he is tearing the football world apart.
First title as a coach
The situation around Xabi Alonso is the same. Where the coach is, there is success. The 42-year-old leaves his mark. After just six years as a coach, he is building on his outstanding success as a player. When he ended his career at FC Bayern in 2017, he was world champion, twice European champion, twice Champions League winner, three times German champion and won ten more titles. He was an icon at Real Madrid and Liverpool FC. Now he can lift the championship trophy as a coach. After the 29th matchday. FC Bayern’s eleven-season championship streak has come to an end. And there is almost no one who doesn’t begrudge Alonso that.
Alonso didn’t really trust himself for a long time; he found football as his only mainstay quite daring. He “honestly didn’t think a professional career was possible for a long time, which is why it was never my only goal in life,” he once told the club magazine “Werkself”: “I studied and played on the side and saw how far I could go in football.” He studied until he went to Liverpool at the age of 22. “There was only one course missing to get a degree in economics,” he said. “Without the change, I would probably have taken the same path as my friends: finish my studies, look for a job in business. That was it “I had a clear plan in case I wasn’t successful in football, and that was completely okay with me.”
No loudspeaker, like other trainer colleagues
This Spaniard from the proud Basque Country has long since conquered the hearts of the football world. José Mourinho is a cult figure because of his notorious eccentricities, but he is just as loved as he is hated. Jürgen Klopp has a cult following because of his absorbing personality, but for some he is too over the top. Pep Guardiola has a cult following because of his football-crazy nerdiness. Xabi Alonso is initially inconspicuous against these colleagues. He doesn’t argue with referees, he doesn’t run up and down the sidelines screaming, he doesn’t give long, barely understandable monologues about tiny scenes from a game.
Xabi Alonso remains calm even in added time when his team has not yet scored the winning goal. He’s happy about the winning goal, but doesn’t run off like he’s been bitten by a tarantula. He distributes kisses to the audience after the final whistle, he brings his entire coaching team to the fence when the fans call for him. If, as happened recently before this match day, there is no interpreter at the press conference, he first speaks Spanish with the Spanish colleagues present and then translates himself into German. In interviews he is a gentleman, a mother-in-law’s favorite, always friendly, reserved, polite and well-dressed. Already in the first half of the season he was the most popular coach in the Bundesliga among fans.
Gladbach still canceled
Granit Xhaka, who also moved to Leverkusen because of Alonso, told Marca before the season: “It’s an honor to be compared to Xabi.” The 42-year-old is a stroke of luck for Bayer Leverkusen. The club, which is “Vizekusen”, came close several times, but then always missed out on success. Dismissed by many football fans in Germany as staid and gray, it’s good, but not terribly relevant to the league. When Alonso is signed in October 2022, the Werkself are in 15th place in the table. The fact that Alonso, this former football star who was able to dominate the midfield so elegantly and at the same time so toughly, is going to Leverkusen of all places is attracting attention. After all, he had turned down Borussia Mönchengladbach a year earlier because he didn’t feel mature.
But after a year as a youth coach at Real Madrid and three years as coach of the second team of his former youth club Real Sociedad San Sebastian, with which he was promoted to the second division and relegated again, he dares to take the step into the Bundesliga, which he is from from his three years in Munich. Into the attention of the big football stage.
For Alonso, the move to the Bundesliga is a logical step: he sees “typically German characteristics” in himself, even before he moves to Munich in 2014. The analytical approach to the job, the organization, that suits the Basque. “Now, in the second stage of my career, my responsibilities have become even greater and these things have become even more important,” he said. That’s why he “always remembered that this league is the right place for me to take the next step in my coaching career after my time in San Sebastián.”
“He changed Leverkusen”
His first game is a foretaste of what is to follow: Leverkusen sweeps 16. FC Schalke 04 off the pitch 4-0. The team recovered and finished the Bundesliga season in sixth place – including qualification for the Europa League. On the 34th matchday there was the last defeat with the 0-3 defeat at VfL Bochum. Since then, Bayer Leverkusen has simply canceled losing. This has already lasted an incredible 43 games. A number of clubs are despairing, earlier in the game – or as has long been a remarkable highlight – later. Very late, sometimes only in stoppage time, Leverkusen knocked out the competition. The players’ concentration always remained high, Alonso praised their mentality and placed emphasis on absolute will. “He has changed Leverkusen. All the players feel that,” said Jeremie Frimpong recently.
You can’t escape the aura of Xabi Alonso. The fans see it the same way as the players. The stadium is always full – but only has a good 30,000 seats – and fans now have to be careful when buying tickets. The club is experiencing a boom in new members, probably also because they have priority in getting tickets. Those who have had the Bayer Cross in their hearts for a long time are not used to it at all, but the successful team and Xabi Alonso are worth a trip to Leverkusen for football fans.
And just like the fans and the players, managing directors and club officials also react to the 42-year-old. In no time at all he has matured into one of the most sought-after coaches in the world. He can choose his employer, the clubs are lining up. His former club FC Bayern wants him to be Thomas Tuchel’s successor; he has ultimately taken away the club’s invincible aura. His former club FC Liverpool wants him, after all Klopp quits. But Alonso decides: he’s not finished in Leverkusen yet.
It is a decision that deserves the utmost respect. Alonso has recognized that bigger is not always better. He is smart enough to know that FC Bayern is a shark tank. And that whoever succeeds Klopp, the fan and player god, will have an incredibly difficult time. He also knows that the clubs will definitely still be pursuing him in a few years. And his third former club may also be joining in; there are persistent rumors that he will succeed Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid in a year or two.
Eight players made national team players
Because he doesn’t just prove what he can do in Leverkusen. During his time at Real Sociedad, he made players better, and several of them are now part of the club’s professional team. What he is now doing at Bayer is fabulous. Florian Wirtz, finally uninjured for a long time, whirls through the opponent’s penalty area in a way that is a joy – or pure desperation for the defenders. Defender Jonathan Tah, who has been at the club since 2015 and is now better than ever, recently told “Zeit”: “Xabi Alonso has taken me to a new level. Now I’m even more unpleasant.” Tah has never defended so confidently and confidently before, making himself indispensable in the DFB team.
Even Xhaka, who at 31 years old and from the top club Arsenal FC already has a lot of experience, raves about the new impulses, for example in passing or tactical behavior. Young defender Stanisic was loaned out by FC Bayern before the season because he couldn’t assert himself in Tuchel’s squad and was supposed to gain playing time. Now he plays confidently and self-confidently. Robert Andrich was nominated for the DFB team for the first time under Alonso. The coach made seven more players national players this season. Including Grimaldo, although he was trained at FC Bayern and played regularly in the Champions League with Benfica Lisbon.
Alonso’s Leverkusen always has solutions and never loses control. Just like the coach himself. Only one thing got out of hand for him. Alonso hadn’t planned to become champion now. “In my plan,” he recently said, “that was a little later.” And not later this season, but in the coming years. A luxury problem.
Now Xabi Alonso has to celebrate on matchday 29 of the 2023/24 season. At least a little. Because there is another luxury problem: the club cannot afford a big celebration. Finally, there are two more titles up for grabs. The second leg of the quarter-finals of the Europa League against West Ham is scheduled for Thursday. The championship trophy will only be awarded after the last match day anyway. The game against FC Augsburg is, fittingly, a home game again. “Vizekusen”’s long wait for the first title in the club’s history is ultimately fully rewarded. Thanks to Xabi Alonso, the maker of improvements.
2024-04-15 04:40:00
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