Jonas Hofmann (from) broke through West Ham’s defense shortly before the end to make it 1-0.
Photo: imago/Moritz Müller
Xabi Alonso had to grin as he made his way home late on Thursday. The 2-0 win in the quarter-final first leg of the Europa League against West Ham United was just under an hour old, it was around midnight – and Leverkusen’s head coach greeted everyone. “See you tomorrow!” he shouted, pointing to the podium in the BayArena press room with a grin. So that’s where he would be sitting again a few hours later. This time to talk about the upcoming coronation mass for his team.
On Sunday, Leverkusen’s footballers can become German champions, for the first time in their 120-year club history. Unless Bayern make a mistake against Cologne and Stuttgart against Frankfurt and give the Rhinelanders the title on Saturday, the Werkself will have it in their own hands at the end of the weekend against Werder Bremen in their own stadium. “It is clear: If we win, we are champions,” Señor Alonso then explained the situation at the second media round on Friday morning, before outlining his plan for the game against the Hanseatic city team: “We have to give it our all. It’s 90 minutes to achieve something very special.«
The numbers with which his team garnishes their breathtaking run of success are also very special. She has now been unbeaten in 42 competitive games, and against Bremen she could equal the record of the Juventus club, which remained undefeated 43 times in a row between 2011 and 2012. After the success against West Ham, Jonas Hofmann no longer knew exactly which serial number the team had reached in this legendary series. It wasn’t important to him either, after all it’s all about deciding the title fight.
And best of all, do it yourself – on the pitch. Nobody in the team has ever become German champion – “and you want to,” Hofmann noted, “let your emotions out and do it together with the group with whom you achieved it. Not on the couch with a glass of water the day before you play yourself.”
Hofmann himself has been kept quite short in terms of active appearances on the pitch; against West Ham, the 31-year-old midfielder was only allowed to start working on the pitch a quarter of an hour before the end. During the grueling attrition of the London defensive bulwark, he promptly turned out to be the one who was able to break it: In the 83rd minute, Hofmann made it 1-0, and in the first minute of stoppage time he set up Victor Boniface, who was with him, to make it 2-0. Bayer’s new nickname “Laterkusen” was once again freshly polished: this year alone, the Rhinelanders have only scored nine times after the 90 regular minutes had expired. As a rule, these were game-winning goals.
Equally striking is the enormous quality that runs through the entire squad of the sovereign league leaders. Against West Ham, coach Alonso called seven new players into his starting line-up compared to the 1-0 win at Union Berlin five days earlier, without causing any break in his team’s passing accuracy, elegant force or excellent pressing.
“We have a squad in which everyone actually belongs in the starting eleven,” says midfielder Granit Xhaka, describing the footballing work of art that sports director Simon Rolfes and Alonso have created since last spring with their very targeted personnel policy. The reward for all these efforts: “Soon no one will say ‘Vizekusen’ anymore. The term annoyed me a bit anyway,” says Leverkusen’s long-time sports director Rudi Völler, happy to finally shed the image of the eternal runner-up.
Völler is now the sports director of the DFB and has just extended his contract there until 2026. On Thursday he sat next to Bayer Leverkusen’s managing director Fernando Carro in the stands. Together the two listened as the euphoric fans, eager for the longed-for title, led their team into the evening with championship chants.
“We all got goosebumps at what was being sung – and what was expected of us,” said Jonas Hofmann. And teammate Xhaka added: »We know that we can make history on Sunday. For the club, for the fans, also for ourselves.« The discreet warning from the Swiss record national player not to be overly motivated against Bremen, but rather to be as patient and compact as he has been throughout the entire season, then briefly called his coach to the scene.
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“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” announced the 42-year-old Alonso with a mischievous smile – and made it clear: “We don’t have ups and downs. We have a very stable mind and are motivated, but not overly motivated. Because we know what we want.” He spoke and assured us with a view to Sunday’s game against Bremen: “We’re really looking forward to it, it couldn’t be bigger.”
The local politicians are definitely prepared for the fall of the inaugural championship. For several days now, four bright red Bayer flags have been blowing in the wind in front of the balcony-free Leverkusen town hall. Mayor Uwe Richrath (SPD) issued a press release during the week: “We will spruce up our city in black and red wherever possible. With the Bayer04 flags in front of the town hall, with flags on the balconies and in the gardens, with scarves and jerseys.” Apart from that, we would of course keep our fingers crossed for the team on Sunday so that they “fulfill this big dream for all of us in Leverkusen.” .
With the championship title approaching, however, not all black and red dreams would be fulfilled. After the duel with Werder, there are five more league games on the agenda. Above all, the Leverkusen team will go into the Berlin Cup final against relegation-threatened second division team Kaiserslautern on May 25th as heavy favorites. And when it comes to the Europa League, there aren’t too many steps left to complete on the way to a possible third title in this glorious season.
Next Thursday, the Rhinelanders will start the second quarter-final duel with West Ham United in London with a two-goal lead – and ideally, their European journey will take them again to the northwest corner of the continent next month. The final of the Europa League will finally take place in Dublin on May 22nd, and Granit Xhaka is mentally tensing up in view of this conceivable program.
»Many Bayer fans hope that we can stand here on Sunday and celebrate a bit. But there’s not too much to celebrate – because it continues. In the championship, in the cup and hopefully also in the Europa League,” emphasizes the 31-year-old Swiss. Entirely in the spirit of the ambitious Basque Xabi Alonso, whose team has been unbeaten since May 2023 – and who says with a view to the rest of the season: “It has not been proven that we even have to lose once this season.”
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