Bayer Leverkusen, with Exequiel Palacios, achieves its historic first Bundesliga. Spanish coach Xabi Alonso had taken over with the team in the relegation zone in October 2022 and this Sunday he proclaimed them champion. Bayer Leverkusen made the Olympic turn of the Bundesliga in a mathematical way, by beating Werder Bremen (5-0) still on matchday 29, the first German league in the club’s history. In this way he broke the hegemony of Bayern Munich, which had just won the last eleven Bundesligas. There are still five dates of the local contest to be played, but it already has an owner: not only that, Bayer Leverkusen has 43 parties without defeats adding all the competencies.
The former footballer from Tolosa trained as a coach in the Real Sociedad reserve team and in October 2022 he took charge of Bayer, when the German team was struggling to maintain the category. Leverkusen finished sixth that year and, in the current campaign, is breaking all records to become German champion.
And Palacios, who has just returned to the team after a muscle injury, is one of the names of the German champion. He won his first European title. The former River midfielder played 20 games in the current campaign (he started 18) and scored three goals.
“We are very stable in the head”, Alonso had said less than 48 hours before the match with Bremen. There will be no excess of confidence. “The expectation is great. It couldn’t be bigger. If we win, we will be champions”. The Basque coach was confident and his team, at 5-0, left no doubts.
Bayer Leverkusen depended on itself to be champion this Sunday, in front of its fans, and did not let this first ‘match ball’ escape, unleashing the party in its stadium, where the fans invaded the playing field even in the last moments of the match, before the match ended, unleashing scenes of chaos due to the problems of the stadium employees to contain the joy so that the clash could end.
The many of Florian Wirtz In the 83rd and 90th minutes they caused massive invasions of the pitch. The last moments of the match were also played in the middle of a red haze due to the smoke from the flares that the Leverkusen ultras lit in one of the backgrounds. Before, Wirtz had scored another goal (68) in this match, in which Bayer Leverkusen’s first goals were scored by the Nigerian Victor Boniface (25 from a penalty) and by the Swiss Granit Xhaka (60).
The best of the win
The team ended its curse, a history of troubles beyond the 1988 UEFA Cup. In a packed BayArena, the Leverkusen team did not waste the first mathematical opportunity to certify the league title, with goals from Victor Boniface, Granit Xhaka and a hat-trick from Florian Wirtz.
The fourth and fifth goals were too much excitement for the stadium, with an invasion of the field before the final whistle. Bayer, without losing a single game in 29 days, He ended the reign of Bayern Munich, champion for the last 11 years, and now dreams of a treble.
It was the 43rd game without losing this season for Bayer Leverkusen, which presents spectacular figures of 38 wins and 5 draws. The harvest of the Werskelf (‘Factory Eleven’, nickname of a team founded by the chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer in 1904, according to a cable from the AFP agency) may continue in the coming weeks.
To the historic Bundesliga, Xabi Alonso’s team can add the Cup final and the Europa League. In the Europa League they will face West Ham on Thursday in London in the second leg of the quarterfinals, after getting the tie back on track with a 2-0 victory in Germany. In the German Cup, Leverkusen will be the big favorite in the final on May 25 in Berlin against Kaiserlautern, a team from the second division.
Bayer was able to take off a very heavy backpack, since they had not lifted a title since the 1993 Cupwith several close failures, including three lost Cup finals and five Bundesliga runners-up, in addition to the lost Champions League final against Real Madrid in 2002.
Few would have bet at the beginning of the season that Bayer Leverkusen was going to be the champion of the Bundesliga, to which it was presented with the label of ‘outsider’ and accompanied by its particular history of misfortunes, which earned it the humorous nickname of Never Worry (from the English word “never”) due to his inability to take advantage of favorable situations to be champion in 2000 and 2002, mainly.
“This is indescribable. Personally, I still haven’t digested what we’ve achieved. I’m going to need to go back to the locker room to find out,” Wirtz told DAZN at the end of the game. And he added: “I need a bit of time in the dressing room to really accept what we have achieved. But yeah, so far it’s been nice to celebrate outside with the fans and have a little party in the locker room.”
The success of Xabi Alonso attracted interest from the continent’s biggest clubs, including Liverpool and Bayern Munich, two of the teams where he played. Both are looking for a replacement for Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel, whose departure in June was already announced, but Alonso finally decided to continue at his current club next season. “We still have big goals.. In the Europa League we want to go as far as possible. We have a good chance of reaching the semifinals. And also in the Cup,” celebrated Xabi Alonso.
A little history
Founded in 1904 by the chemical company Bayer, the history of Leverkusen begins with a letter written in February 1903 by two Bayer employees, Wilhelm Hauschild and August Kuhlmann, and signed by 170 employees. They are calling for the creation of a sports club linked to the group founded in 1863 by Friedrich Bayer, describes the AFP agency.
After receiving the green light from the management of the chemical company, the multi-sports club TuS 04 – a name that would become Bayer 04 Leverkusen – was born on July 1, 1904, and the football section played its first games three more years. late. The links between the club and the company remain strong. Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fussball GmbH is currently a 100% subsidiary of Bayer AG.
The club logo recovers the Bayer cross, the team is nicknamed the ‘Werkself’, the ‘factory eleven’, because until the 1970s a large part of the players on the squad were linked to the factory. The current Leverkusen stadium, inaugurated in August 1958, It was initially called Ulrich-Haberland Stadion, named after Bayer’s boss at the time, before being renamed BayArena in 1998.