Xabi Alonso braces Leverkusen for Bundesliga defence as Vincent Kompany’s Bayern empire strikes back
In a trophyless season, Bayern were knocked off their perch by Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen – whose aim is to defend their Bundesliga title
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Your support makes all the difference.After years of superiority came the ultimate proof of domination, the Invincible season, the German team who completed the campaign without losing to German opposition. Except that, after 11 consecutive Bundesliga titles, Bayern Munich relinquished their crown. The unbeaten, unstoppable side were Bayer Leverkusen. “Neverkusen” – or “Vizekusen” in German – were rebranded “Winnerkusen”: they added the Supercup and the German Cup to their maiden Bundesliga title, aided by an improbable, seemingly unstoppable, torrent of injury-time winners.
German football had a different kind of predictability. As the Bundesliga resumes this weekend, it is with an added attention on the slighted, deposed Germans. Bayern’s response to losing their crown was unorthodox. Accustomed as they are to raiding their closest challengers, they were instead slighted when Xabi Alonso chose to remain at Leverkusen. Instead of a manager whose lone loss last season came to Atalanta in the Europa League final, they opted for one defeated 26 times: Vincent Kompany, relegated with Burnley.
Perhaps their most unexpected appointment since the untried Soren Lerby’s unsuccessful spell in 1991-92 represented a left-field move. “For sure it was a surprise,” said Lothar Matthaus, the 1990 World Cup-winning captain who secured seven Bundesliga titles with Bayern. “Not everyone had his name on the paper. Me too.”
If part of Kompany’s task is to restore Bayern to their natural position at the summit, part of it is to restore their identity. “We need to rediscover this self-confidence and the Bayern DNA,” captain Manuel Neuer said. Matthaus believes a path to success is not to emulate his more decorated predecessor. “In the last two years, Bayern Munich was not a family, Bayern Munich was a one-man show and that one-man show was Thomas Tuchel,” he explained in a lacerating verdict. “He is a good coach but not for Bayern Munich. The atmosphere between the coach, the talking, the communication, the atmosphere was not Bayern Munich-like, and Bayern Munich didn’t perform well last year, especially not in the Bundesliga. They will do it much better.”
He sees signs that Kompany is again helping Bayern to be the world’s biggest family club. “Bayern Munich is connected with each other,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it is the cleaning lady or the bus driver or the green keeper, everybody was close to each other, everybody was close to each other. But with Thomas Tuchel, it was he.”
But it will not have escaped Tuchel’s attention that, a year later, Kompany has been given one of his transfer targets, Joao Palhinha. “Tuchel can say he wants a holding six, he wants Palhinha, but not every second day in the media conference,” Matthaus countered. Tuchel felt Bayern lacked a defensive midfielder. They don’t now. If an expensive rebuild suggests their scouting department is based in London, it has also yielded Michael Olise and a permanent deal for Eric Dier. Last year’s flagship arrival from the British capital, Harry Kane, seemed to guarantee himself a belated first trophy of his career by joining Bayern; his only silverware was instead the European Golden Shoe.
“I think he will not score 36 goals [again],” said Matthaus. “But I’m sure he was a big ambassador for the Bundesliga worldwide.” But if the coup of luring Kane from the Premier League was an advertisement for the German league, so was Leverkusen’s triumph.
Alonso’s decision to stay at the BayArena offers hope of a title race; though ultimately Leverkusen were so consistent, there wasn’t one last year. Now they and Bayern may be co-favourites. “Leverkusen has the same coach, they have the same players, no so big changes,” added Matthaus. And if that depends on ensuring Bayern do not sign the defensive cornerstone Jonathan Tah this month, the expectation of a major sale this summer – whether Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong or Alex Grimaldo – has proved misguided. There is less pressure at a smaller club. “They can walk with less media in Leverkusen, they’re more quiet,” Matthaus explained. That may help Alonso; his decision to stay showed a confidence in Bayer’s immediate future.
Matthaus spotted a trend in the Bundesliga dugouts, one which partly explains Kompany’s appointment: youth. Germany is no country for alte Menschen. Alonso and Stuttgart’s Sebastian Hoeness are 42, Kompany 38, Borussia Dortmund’s Nuri Sahin still younger at 35.
And, to outsiders, a curiosity. It reflected well on the Bundesliga that it supplied finalists in the Europa League and the Champions League last season yet while Edin Terzic joined the Dortmund immortals Ottmar Hitzfeld and Jurgen Klopp to such a stage, he then stepped down, replaced by Sahin, a mid-season addition to his coaching staff. The presumption was that Terzic knew his successor. Dortmund had a campaign that lent itself to different explanations, underachieving in finishing fifth in the Bundesliga and overachieving in Europe.
Theirs has been a summer of change. Five players to take the field in the Champions League final are gone: the loanees Ian Maatsen and Jadon Sancho, the semi-final scorer Niclas Fullkrug, the club legends Marco Reus and Mats Hummels, the latter an outspoken critic of Terzic. Dortmund used to buy young but the 33-year-old Pascal Gross shows that is not the case. Fullkrug is replaced by two strikers who scored 44 Bundesliga goals last season, in Maximilian Beier and Serhou Guirassy, who got 28 in as many matches for Stuttgart.
And if German football’s food chain normally involves Bayern weakening their rivals, now Stuttgart are suffering for their success. The runners-up have been stripped of stars, Guirassy and defender Waldemar Anton have gone to Dortmund, Hiroki Ito to Bayern. Matthaus sees them among the five strongest sides now, but with some doubts.
The other are RB Leipzig. Euro 2024 illustrated the success of their recruitment, given the performances of Xavi Simons, Christoph Baumgartner and Dani Olmo. Bringing Simons back on loan, then, looks auspicious, while they banked €55m (£46.5m) from Barcelona for Olmo. That record of unearthing talent means Antonio Nusa, the 19-year-old Norwegian winger they have signed, should be well worth watching.
So, too, the two newcomers: Holstein Kiel, in their debut Bundesliga campaign, and St Pauli, the hipsters’ favourites, back after a 13-year exile. Like Union Berlin, last season’s big fallers, they reflect a trend: Hamburg and Hertha Berlin, the bigger clubs in their respective cities, are in the Bundesliga second division. Indeed, five of the 10 host stadia of Euro 2024 – along with those of Fortuna Dusseldorf, Koln and Schalke – stage second-division football this season. Four more, plus Leverkusen’s BayArena, will welcome the Champions League. And as Neuer noted, the last time Bayern had a trophyless season, they rebounded to earn a treble the following year. If the rest can consider themselves warned that the empire may strike back, Alonso may realise the last team to deny Bayern the Bundesliga title – Jurgen Klopp’s Dortmund – first retained it and then reached a Champions League final.
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