By Sardinia, Italy
CNN
—
In life, as in soccer, it’s often said that it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.
Xabi Alonso and Bayer Leverkusen are a living, breathing testament to that.
This season, they’ve taken their fans on a journey the likes of which they could only have dreamed about.
A season which has defied all expectations, rewritten the history books and set new standards the likes of which the modern European game has never witnessed before.
An unprecedented unbeaten domestic league season and two trophies have led to a full rebrand from the derided ‘Neverkusen’ to the lauded ‘Neverlusen.’
“For sure, it’s been quite a journey […] Very challenging, very demanding,” Alonso told CNN Sport’s Amanda Davies at the inaugural Globe Soccer Awards Europe Edition in Sardinia, Italy.
“During the first weeks of the competition, I had a good feeling that we could make a good season.
“For sure, I was not that optimistic that we could fight until the last week, but that we could have a good season? Yes.”
Foundations for success
Prior to his arrival at the BayArena in October 2022, Alonso had coached Real Madrid’s Under-14 team and Real Sociedad’s B team.
He says it was at Sociedad where he came to understand the importance of player development, knowledge sharing and tactical adaptability; principles which he hoped to instill in his Leverkusen side.
“Coming back to the roots, coming back to the work with the young players [at Real Sociedad] gave me this vision that is not always the elite, elite, elite where I had been playing, [but] to come back to a few levels behind and to try to talk on their level,” explained Alonso.
“[It] helped me a lot to develop as a coach, as a manager and I don’t want to forget that.”
The Spaniard joined a team languishing second from last in the Bundesliga, in desperate need of fresh ideas and a clear vision for upward mobility.
A successful, strategically planned transfer window last summer fused together with Alonso’s desire to home in on nurturing talent was key to laying the groundwork for a remarkable turnaround in fortunes.
Bringing in experience and guile in the form of midfielder Granit Xhaka, harnessing the explosive abilities of full-back Álex Grimaldo and unleashing the lethal striking ability of forward Victor Boniface, combined with the existing talent of the masterful Florian Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong, created a blend of grit and dynamism that would carry the team across three competitions this season.
“Last year, it was a difficult year for the club […] When I came, the second part of the season was better. We try to get back [to] where we thought that we could make it. The goal [this year] was to make Champions League,” he said.
Expectation vs. reality
As it turned out, Champions League would be the bare minimum of what they would achieve.
Week after week, the Leverkusen juggernaut rolled on in the Bundesliga.
Statement victories over an inconsistent Bayern Munich side – the winner of the last 11 league titles – a propensity for last-gasp winners and demolition jobs on all other teams who stood in their way gave growing belief in what was only once but a dream: an unbeaten season.
“In the team, [the talk] wasn’t that much the unbeaten run, it was more like the spectacular numbers that we were doing,” he said.
“[From] all the media, there’s this excitement of what’s happening that [Leverkusen] are: ‘One more game, one more game. 42, 43 and it continues.’ So that adds some kind of pressure […] We prefer to think about short goals than more in the long term.”
Since winning the German Cup in 1993, Leverkusen had a propensity for falling at the final hurdle – be it finishing runner-up in the league multiple times or on the European stage, most famously to Real Madrid in the 2002 Champions League final.
But not this year; after 29 games unbeaten in the league, the 31 year trophy drought was over and the club’s first ever Bundesliga title had been won in dominant circumstances.
Victory against Augsburg on the final day of the season completed a never before seen in Germany ‘Invincibles’ league season and extended the overall unbeaten run to 51 games, eclipsing the previous record of 48 games set by Benfica between 1963-65.
“We’re really proud of it. We need some time to reflect, to deal with it, to observe, to analyze properly. But for the future, I think that some of the principles that we have sustained, those are going to be really meaningful for the future.”
Treble hurt
However, there was little time to bask in the glory of a maiden title for Alonso. A tantalizing treble was still on the cards with two defining finals in the space of four days.
Firstly, Atalanta in the Europa League followed by Kaiserslautern in the German Cup.
Could Leverkusen become just the second German team in history to complete a treble after Bayern Munich?
Alas, the perfect season wasn’t to be.
Leverkusen’s historic run came to a dramatic ending in the Europa League final as Ademola Lookman’s hat trick delivered the Italians their second major trophy in the club’s 116-year history.
Redemption, though, would be served a few days later as Granit Xhaka’s strike saw Alonso and his team complete a domestic double.
So close, yet so far from eternity.
“It’s football. The exception has been the 52 that we made. To deal with the defeat it’s part of our job. It’s not the first time, [and] it’s not going to be the last time,” a reflective Alonso said.
“I’m pretty sure I have the intuition that that game [against Atalanta] will make me a better coach, better manager than if we would have won the treble.
“For sure, those games you don’t forget, and you can use that for the future.
“At the moment, it hurts. It hurts so much, but I have that feeling that it will be more useful for my development than winning the treble.”
Competitive edge
Perhaps the bigger feat achieved by Alonso, Leverkusen and the Bundesliga as a whole this season has been to remind the wider footballing world of the league’s quality and competitiveness.
Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich reached the Champions League final and semifinals alongside Leverkusen’s astonishing exploits.
Derided in some quarters as a ‘Farmers League’ for lacking apparent star power and marketing, Alonso believed German clubs’ performances on the domestic and European stages this season give the Bundesliga a platform to entice a captive global audience and once again challenge, if not surpass, its European competitors.
“There has always been that pride [in German football],” said Alonso.
“The league is so competitive. We know that. I know that pretty well because I have to work on a weekly basis on that!
“For the whole of Europe or even the whole world to see how good the teams are, how good the players are … it’s really, really important.
“I think that we need to push the Bundesliga to have this, not German projection, [but] this world projection.
“That’s going to be our biggest push for the league if we are able to be known worldwide [like] La Liga, as the Premier League… to not be left behind.”
So how does he believe the league goes about achieving that objective?
“Performing, reaching finals, playing good football, helping spectacular players that they have an impact on the young kids in Leverkusen, in Dortmund but as well in San Francisco or in Delhi,” he explains.
“We have Florian Wirtz. We have [Jeremie] Frimpong. We have these young ones that they have a really good impact in these young kids that we have right now.”
Liverpool links
It’s perhaps no surprise that the Spaniard’s rapid rise through the footballing ranks and achievements this season have garnered him many suitors.
During the season, the 42-year-old was linked to then managerial vacancies at two of his former teams – Bayern Munich and Liverpool – jobs which have now been filled by Vincent Kompany and Arne Slot, respectively.
Yet did Alonso give any consideration to the Liverpool job following Jürgen Klopp’s announcement in January that he’d be stepping down at the end of the season?
“All these decisions, they need to be thorough. You need to really think about them. And it was more about what I had, not what I’m missing,” he explained.
“For sure, my bond with Liverpool is there and it’s still there. So there’s no, any kind of issue with that.”
Asked whether he’d spoken to the Merseyside club, Alonso responded: “That’s kind of behind the curtains.”
For how much longer those curtains will stay closed remains to be seen.
