In football, nicknames often stick — especially the cruel ones, coined by rival fans.
Bayer Leverkusen supporters have not lived down an annoyingly apt nickname for several years: ‘Neverkusen’, because of all the near misses the North Rhine-Westphalia club has endured during the 30 barren years since its last trophy, the 1992-93 DFB Pokal.
The most heartbreaking of the close calls was the ‘treble that never was’ in 2002, runner-up finishes in the Bundesliga, DFB Pokal and UEFA Champions League. Given the other ‘nearly moments’, which included letting the league title slip from its grasp on the final day of the 1999-2000 season, it’s no wonder that Leverkusen still bears deep mental scars.
Dream beginning
But the start to 2023-24 has allowed Die Werkself fans to dream again, thanks to what they have seen their team achieve under Xabi Alonso, a serial-winner as a player, now turning heads in his first senior role as head coach.
Before the international break, Leverkusen matched the best ever start to a Bundesliga season, with 31 out of 33 points after a 4-0 win over Union Berlin in Gameweek 11. That equalled Bayern Munich’s record from 2015-16 — back when Alonso was a classy midfielder playing for the German powerhouse under Pep Guardiola, who oversaw three successful seasons at Munich.
Indeed, the only points Leverkusen has dropped came in a pulsating 2-2 draw at reigning champion Bayern’s home — a result described as “fair” by players and coaches from both sides.
“I think we played on the same level,” Alonso said after the draw back 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 yet come. Leverkusen has won 16 of its 17 matches in all competitions, including 12 games in a row in Germany and internationally.
But while the fans have begun to believe that the club can contend for the title, Alonso isn’t looking too far ahead, telling reporters “there’s no certainty about what will happen in May”.
“It’s going to be difficult before the winter break,” said 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 experience
Former Arsenal captain Granit Xhaka, now manning Leverkusen’s midfield, told Sportbild that the “young side had the hunger to achieve something big” but reminded everyone that titles are not won in the season’s first half. That is an experience Xhaka knows all too well: Arsenal was overtaken by Manchester City towards the end of the 2022-23 Premier League season.
It’s no surprise that Alonso and his on-field lieutenant have struck a note of caution. Bayern has dominated the Bundesliga, winning 11 titles in a row. Ending a monopoly like the one Bayern has established requires many things to go Leverkusen’s way.
Besides, Die Werkself has been here before — as recently as in the Peter Bosz era, Leverkusen went toe-to-toe with Bayern until the winter break but collapsed after that.
But this season feels different. And a large part of that is because of the type of football the side has played in scoring 34 goals in 11 Bundesliga games. It’s a style that has proven successful at the top level; besides, it captures the imagination, allowing fans to buy into the journey.
Alonso’s Leverkusen lines up in a nominal 3-4-3, attacking with five and defending with five like many of the elites do. It plays an exciting brand of football that is adaptable: it dominates the ball with slick passing but also carries plenty of venom in transitions and counter-attacks.
This season in the Bundesliga, Leverkusen ranks second for possession (58.6%) and leads in pass accuracy (89%), but a real measure of how dominant its play has been can be had from the fact that no side has made more passes in the opposition half (88.6% of 3,904 attempted).
A squad of young, ambitious players 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 players in the close-knit squad has played a role in the seamless football the side plays.
Frimpong said Alonso’s record as a player at clubs such as Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern, along with the Spanish national team, is a powerful 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 said.
Alonso has also ensured there are experienced heads to guide the young talent on the pitch, with Lukas Hradecky in goal, Xhaka in the midfield pivot and Alex Grimaldo at left-wingback.
Leverkusen has been shrewd in the transfer market, ensuring the loss of winger Moussa Diaby to Aston Villa did not hurt its goal-scoring prospects. But with as many as five players potentially leaving for the Africa Cup of Nations in the new year, Leverkusen, which does not have the depth Bayern has, will find the going difficult. Alonso will also need to rotate his squad, given the demands of playing in Europe as well, to manage the workload.
Spectacular turnaround
This is just the latest in a series of challenges Alonso has faced in his first job with a club’s first team after working with reserve and youth squads in Spain. When he took the reins at Leverkusen in October 2022, the side had slumped to 17th in the 18-team league. Alonso had only one win from his first seven games in all competitions but turned it around spectacularly.
From guiding the side to sixth in the Bundesliga and the semifinals of the Europa League in his first season in charge, Alonso has driven Leverkusen to the summit of the German top-flight this season. Unsurprisingly, the club acted quickly in August to tie him up until 2026, agreeing a two-year extension of his contract.
Equally unsurprisingly, Alonso’s early success has fuelled speculation in the Spanish media that he could be a contender to take over at his old club Real Madrid when Carlo Ancelotti’s contract runs out at the end of the season.
That’s a move that seems inevitable in the future, but Leverkusen fans will fervently hope that Alonso’s young chargers will have made the ‘Neverkusen’ nickname a thing of the past by then.
