Quiet and unassuming, Xabi Alonso has emerged as one of the top coaches in the world, writes Nick Said.
Xabi Alonso instantly announced himself as the best young up-and-coming coach in world football when he led Bayer Leverkusen through an incredible 2023/24 season in which they lost only one game and were invincible in the Bundesliga.
It is a first ever league title for the 120-year-old club, who had been runners-up on five previous occasions before Spaniard Alonso got them over the line in style.
They finished 17 points ahead of second-placed Stuttgart, with perennial winners Bayern Munich relegated to third, and won 28 and drew six of their 34 Bundesliga games.
Alonso’s side scored 89 goals and conceded only 24 for a massive +65 goal-difference that further highlighted their superiority.
Added to that, Alonso also took Leverkusen to the ‘Double’ as they won the German Cup for only the second time in their history.
The one slight blemish on their most remarkable season was a 3–0 defeat to Italian side Atalanta in the final of the UEFA Europa League.
That was their only loss in a season that contained 53 games in all competitions, of which they won 43 and drew nine.
Alonso, a 2010 World Cup winner with Spain who played for top clubs Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, had only coached the B side of Real Sociedad in senior football before he was appointed by Leverkusen in 2022.
Before that he had also led the Real Madrid under–14s while he completed his UEFA Pro Licence.
At Sociedad he took the B team into the second level in Spain, but then could not keep them there as the team were relegated, and he left the club.
When he took over Leverkusen in October 2022 the club were second bottom in the league and looking like relegation candidates.
But he clicked quickly with the players and they, with his tactical plan, finished a very credible sixth in 2022/23, though no-one expected what was to come.
Leverkusen secured an astonishing 40 more points compared to the season before and obtained new club records for wins (28), points (90), goals scored (89), fewest goals conceded (24), and a 10-game winning run and 16 clean sheets in a season.
This led to other clubs seeking Alonso’s services, most notably former side Liverpool, who wanted him to replace Jürgen Klopp. But he turned them down in favour of a go at the Champions League with Leverkusen.
“I am convinced it is the right decision, I am happy,” Alonso said. “The players gave me so many reasons to keep believing in the team – for their commitment, for their desire, for their hunger to have a great season. My job is not over here.”
Alonso admits that early in the 2023/24 campaign he believed there was something special brewing for his team.
“It’s been quite a journey. Very challenging, very demanding,” Alonso told multinational news broadcaster, CNN Sport. “During the first weeks of the competition, I had a good feeling that we could make a good season.
“I was not that optimistic that we could fight until the last week, but that we could have a good season? Yes.”
He admits the time he spent as a coach with the B team at Sociedad grounded him again in the way he thinks about football.
“Coming back to the roots, coming back to the work with the young players 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.
“[It] helped me a lot to develop as a coach, as a manager and I don’t want to forget that.” Alonso has much admiration for another Spanish coach, Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola, as well as his former Real Madrid boss, the Portuguese José Mourinho.
They have shaped his thoughts on the game.“They share many things but above all they are leaders,” Alonso said.
“They share that charisma, that special thing that whenever they come into the room everyone knows the boss is there and they have to listen to him.
“They have different personalities and different approaches to the game, but in terms of their ambitions, how they go into the detail and how they respect the opponent, they spend so much time analysing the opponent.
“They know that nowadays you need to adapt your team to have an advantage over the opponent, they spend a lot of time and they’re hard workers. To be demanding with your players you have to first be demanding with yourself and they are.
“For me the special thing is how they are able to deliver the message they want to the players and how they are able to connect with you and exchange that idea that they have.”
