Xabi Alonso is becoming the talk of the world in world football. This time it was not because of personal achievements when he was still active as a footballer. This young Spanish coach is currently viral in football news because of his impressive achievements as coach of Bayer Leverkusen.
Coming to the Bay Arena in the 2022/2023 season, to be precise on October 5 2022, the former Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich midfielder, has started to show his coaching qualities. His target was not grandiose, but in fact he succeeded in saving Leverkusen from the brink of relegation and completed his first season as manager by finishing in 6th place in the final standings. These provisions made Xabi Alonso bring his team to compete in the Europa League this season.
Entering the 2023/2024 season, Alonso’s concoction is starting to bear fruit. Armed with a main squad with minimal players labeled as stars, Leverkusen was transformed into a solid team. Clean sweep of six matches in the Europa League group phase. Meanwhile in the DFB Pokal competition, Leverkusen has so far qualified for the semifinals.
Leverkusen’s main strength in Alonso’s hands is not in the attack sector. Midfield and defense are the keys to his strength. These two sectors look compact in organizing attack and defense. The players’ movements are very disciplined in guarding opponents and also when building attacks.
Bayer Leverkusen has played 33 matches in all competitions this season with an unbeaten record. This is a new record for a Bundesliga club. Alonso successfully led Bayer Leverkusen to break the record of Bundesliga kings, Bayern Munich in the 2019-2020 season, who had a record of 32 unbeaten matches in all competitions in one season.
Leverkusen set a new record for German football after beating Mainz 2-1 in Week 23. This is the 19th win and only 4 draws. Unbeaten! In total, in both the Europa League, DFB Pokal and Bundesliga, Leverkusen has so far scored 29 wins and 4 draws. This means that, outside of league competition, Alonso’s troops swept away the victory.
Then, in terms of goal productivity, Leverkusen retainers scored 97 goals and only conceded 24 times. Xabi Alonso is now preparing to present Leverkusen’s first league title in history. He is also preparing to win his first league title as a coach. Currently Leverkusen is 11 points ahead of Bayern Munich. There are 11 matches left to complete this season’s Bundesliga competition.
If you look at the quality of the game, it is not impossible and without any obstacles, Alonso will break the long chain of league champions that has been dominated by FC Hollywood. Moreover, in two meetings with Thomas Tuchel’s team, Alonso succeeded in leading his team to beat The Bavarians. The first meeting of the 4th week of the Bundesliga at the Allianz Arena, Leverkusen defeated Bayern 2-2, and in the 21st week which took place at the Bay Arena, Leverkusen silenced Bayern with a score of 3-0. Head to head, Leverkusen is already superior to Bayern if at the end of the season the two teams have the same points.
Alonso succeeded in making Leverkusen players the team with the second best productivity after Bayern Munich. However, Leverkusen is stronger in defense. From 19 matches in the league, Leverkusen has collected 59 goals and conceded only 16 times. Uniquely, none of the Leverkusen strikers are in the top 5 temporary top scorers. This means that Leverkusen players were created by Alonso to be able to score goals from all lines.
Without star players when building the team since the 2022/2023 season, Alonso’s squad only contains four names who are quite famous in Europe, namely Patrick Schick, Granit Xhaka, Alex Grimaldo and Jeremie Frimpong. However, with a background of non-star players, Alonso actually created a potential star. Among them is Florian Wirtz. This German player with jersey number 10 has scored 8 goals and 18 assists in all competitions.
This achievement, which can be said to be fantastic, makes Xabi Alonso worthy of being given the title of professor on the gridiron, especially in the Bundesliga. Masterclass, yes! Unbeaten, yes!
ASL
