How to turn a football team around 180 degrees, parts one and two. Even after Bayer Leverkusen made the 4,000km journey back from Thursday night Europa League duty in Baku, and even after Union Berlin stopped their losing streak by picking up a point in Diego Maradona’s back garden, this could not have run more faithfully to current script.
At this time last year, Leverkusen and Union were polar opposites. Or almost. To be more precise at this exact point 12 months ago, the former were in 13th and the latter sitting up in second. The weeks immediately preceding that, even, had been the first evidence of the Xabi Alonso effect. When he had taken over as head coach of Leverkusen on 5 October, Die Werkself were second-bottom, a squad built to challenge for the Champions League glued in the relegation quagmire.
