According to rights, these future devices should represent the end of the Champions League road to Bayer Leverkusen. The side of the hometown of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world are hardly poor in Bundesliga, but among the European elite with which they now rub shoulders, they are in the group of poor comparative comparatives.
You have to go back more than 20 years for the last time a finalist in the Champions League came from outside the current top 15 of Deloitte Football Money League. Retrospectively, the first years of the 21st century reflect a different Europe, that where average weights like Valence, Monaco, Porto and even Leverkusen could merge at the right time, exploiting the ineffectiveness of a ruling class that had not yet been moored the rest of the sport.
This is no longer the case, and although it is conceivable that a team with the fourth bill on the highest wages can win the Bundesliga in a year when everything seems to be breaking, it should seem impossible that a team that does not present on the Deloitte Football Money League – their status of what is effectively a limited liability company makes its finances to follow for the dollar game. When one of them is your eighth opponent, the pre -eminent force in your domestic competition, the chances are surely against you.
“Our income is a third of the Munich of Bayern,” said Leverkusen CEO last week Fernando Carro during the Financial Times Business of Football Summit, perhaps overestimating the Gulf between its side and the managers of Bundesliga, whose most recent income exceeded just over $ 825 million. “You have to try to be better, smarter and faster.
“What I did when I started in 2018 is to define a long -term strategy. We were 28th in the coefficients of the UEFA club, we said that we wanted to be the first four (in Germany), a top 16 in Europe … We did a lot of things that were essentially growing.
Choice of experts from the Champions League, predictions: who will prevail in the play of Real Madrid against Atletico Madrid?
Pardeep Cattry
Until now, however, there is no real signs of Xabi Alonso Leverkusen oscillation. It looks like a long shot, but the titles of titles, who entered an undefeated season in all competitions in 2023-24, are the last team to compete with Bayern Munich in Bundesliga. Their manager, appointed two and a half years ago, has still not lost a DFB Pokal tie. A first eight place in the Champions League was secured with little or no noise.
The road to the final of the Champions League could be as difficult for them as any of those who stand in competition, but try to tell their players that it will be the fortnight when the economic realities of European football are beginning to say it.
According to striker Nathan Tella, “we are one of the best world teams. You have no season as we did last season and it’s a stroke of luck. You continue to build on it and enter the Champions League, I think a lot of teams had a lot of respect for us. We won it.”
No one will savor a meeting with Leverkusen, especially its 16 opponents Bayern Munich, who have not yet beaten Alonso in six meetings. The dimensions could place The work As a ninth favorite to win the competition, opted seventh, but it may speak more about their probable path to the final than the quality of the Alonso team. Beating Bayern and it would probably be Inter in the quarters, a team that they usually surmounted in the league phase. Barcelona seeks to have a clear road to a semi-final; Alonso’s methodical approach has well equaled the sides that play with the verticality that Hansi Flick brought from the Bundesliga to Barça.
Overcome all These teams would need a dose of makeshift which transformed Neverkusen into Neverlosin ‘in 2023-24. However, even if they continued to run in the best team left on their side of the support, Leverkusen would not be much less than 50:50 in any match. It is a team that quickly established itself as a competitor, without any great injection of finance beyond a few sales to the Premier League.
How Leverkusen built a juggernaut
Who is exactly the architect of Leverkusen’s excellence depends on who you ask. A data analyst could tell you that having the best young playmaker in the world – Florian Wirtz – has opened up new possibilities for a team that could otherwise fight for a berth of the first four. Credit certainly belongs to the scouting department which has identified such value in people like Alejandro Grimaldo, Victor Boniface and Tella, to name only a few. Carro argues that the director of football Simon Rolfes is the best rental he has made, opening the club to the possibilities that followed.
Spend a few minutes in Tella’s business and you will have a fairly lively meaning of the place where it gives the most credit. Speaking before the full victory on Saturday on Eintracht Frankfurt, in which he would mark the opening, the former Burnley, Southampton and Arsenal shone in his praise for Alonso.
“We are playing Frankfurt this weekend and our only objective will be on Frankfurt until the final whistle is,” he said, highlighting an ability to keep his team when he had to be particularly stretched in the back of last season.
“This is the radiance of the coach. It does not allow us to think too far, he tells us to stay in the present, to focus on the next game you can play. You do not think of two or three games in advance, you think of the one you can play and an impact. It has given a lot of clarity, a lot of understanding.”
How Leverkusen dominated Bayern
If a team knows the excellence of Alonso, it is Bayern. Six times, they tried to beat the Leverkusen doors, every time they failed. Vincent Kompany’s team had the chance to escape with a draw the last time they met, exceeded 15 to two and lucky that neither Tella nor Wirtz had their shooting boots that night. The victory last February could well be the decisive result of Alonso’s mandate. Not only was it the moment when Leverkusen took the anneged champions pending, but it was a masterclass of their coach, who pivoted on a back at four years while Bayern pivoted in a back to three to correspond to their opponents.
“As a team, we understand how good Bayern is”, explains Tella, “their qualities and their strength, but the coach instilled in us the conviction that we can go out and beat anyone.
“We have a lot of confidence. It arises from the coach. He has a clear match plan. Some games require different things, but we never do on the field and we are confused. Throughout the week, he gives us a clear indication of what we have to do and we spend the week to work there.
“As the match arrives, we are all ready, we are all impatient with the opportunity to play against such a big team. When we play a big team, we do not worry about them, we focus only on ourselves.”
What makes Leverkusen’s record against Bayern Munich all the more impressive is the identity of their matchwinners. Wirtz and Victor Boniface have not yet scored or helps for Alonso during their meetings with the Bavarians. Tella, on the other hand, has one of each and played key roles in the two games mentioned above, leading the line last time to the surprise of many.
Not necessarily the first name on the team sheet – 14 players have more than a minute starting for the beginning of 2023-24 – Tella is still trusting some of the most difficult assignments, its versatility appreciated by its manager.
“Perhaps outside looking in his surprise, but the coach knows and has reasons why I play in this position. He trusts me to go out and do a job. Maybe there is another game that I play on the left or further back. Everyone has confidence in the coach, he has an idea, he knows what people are the forces and play. If there is a game like everyone else.
“We know that we have a big team. We know that he can only play 11 players, he can only make five substitutions. The coach told us all, we have a lot of games, we are in each competition.” Some players may not play much, but I need everyone.
“Everyone, if they didn’t play or start, try to increase the level. It made us a better team.”
Good enough to win the Champions League? They check some of the potential champions: Wirtz the revolutionary striker, enough depth to survive any injury crisis in Tottenham, a defense that has largely seemed parsimonious. This last factor matters a lot and the expected non-penalty 1.02 goals authorized per game bear witness to a team that is clearly very good but perhaps not at the same level as Liverpool or Arsenal. Likewise, no one will confuse their attack for that of Real Madrid, but it has obtained its objectives.
They may not be considered the best of the best by their statistics, but many teams that – Liverpool, Paris Saint -Germain, Arsenal and Real Madrid – must last it on the other side of the support. And after last year, it is not a team that wants to believe.
“We have a very, very, very talented team of very talented people, a very, very, very Good coach, “said Tella.” All hands together give us the best chance in every match. We will always have confidence. “”
