00:00A lot of things have happened in football recently that are hard to believe. I still
00:07think that Wayne Bridge KSI thing was some sort of elaborate AI rendering for example.
00:12But last season's Bundesliga might well be the best. Before 2024, Bayer Leverkusen were
00:19infamous for never having won the league. So much so that it was an enormous part of
00:24the club's identity, and then Xabi Alonso just went and won it for them, unbeaten.
00:30And this is the quite incredible story of how that happened.
00:34Back in April 2002, Klaus Toppmoller's Leverkusen were five points clear of the Bundesliga summit
00:40with three matches remaining. Only for the unthinkable to happen. A shock 2-1 home defeat
00:46to Werder Bremen, followed by a loss at struggling Nuremberg, saw Leverkusen overhauled by Borussia
00:52Dortmund going into the final day. A talented squad featuring Michael Ballack,
00:57Zé Roberto and a young Dimitar Berbatov had plenty still to play for. Their last three
01:02matches of the season would feature this final day Bundesliga salvage mission against Hertha
01:07Berlin, a DFB Pokal final showdown with Schalke and a Champions League final against Real
01:13Madrid. An incredible treble was still on the cards but what ensued was… how can I
01:20put this… not fun. We actually won our final Bundesliga match but Dortmund also won,
01:27ex-Leverkusen captain Jens Nowotny, who made 293 appearances for the club, tells 442 Now.
01:34It was such a crushing blow after coming so close. We were stunned, causing us to lose
01:39the cup final against Schalke. By then, we were in freefall and gave ourselves little
01:44hope against Real in the Champions League final, so they beat us too.
01:48Even if you're not a Leverkusen fan, you'll remember this one. Zidane, volley, whoosh,
01:53euphoria, etc. The second best goal ever scored at Hampden Park after David Gray's 92nd minute
02:00cup final winner for Hibbs, no ats please. It was just so extremely frustrating though,
02:05according to Nowotny. Not only to lose three titles in three matches but also to deny our
02:10fans, the coaches, the staff and the entire city the opportunity to celebrate together.
02:16That devastating campaign confirmed the club's Neverkusen nickname. Ever the Bridesmaids,
02:22Leverkusen had come second in Germany's top division for the fourth time in just six years.
02:28Meaning that in 98 years of their history, they had lifted just two major trophies,
02:34the UEFA Cup in 1988 beating Espanyol on penalties and the DFB-Pokal in 1993.
02:40That was until this man arrived. When Alonso replaced the dismissed Gerardo Sioane in early
02:472022, they languished in 17th, joint bottom of their Champions League group and out of the cup,
02:53eliminated in the first round by third-tier Elversberg. He quickly installed a back three,
02:59encouraging his players to press high and dominate possession. Having taken just 0.6
03:04points per game in their first eight matches, they improved that to 1.7 under the Spaniard
03:09and sealed a sixth place finish and qualification for the Europa League.
03:13Alonso's prize for this good start was the trust to revamp the squad.
03:17Granit Xhaka, Jens Hoffmann, Nathan Teller, Alex Grimaldo and Victor Boniface all arrived
03:22that summer, funded largely by Moussa Diaby's departure to Aston Villa.
03:26Leverkusen made a blistering start to 23-24, winning their opening three encounters against
03:32Leipzig, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Dramstadt. Few people though expected that run to continue
03:38given their next assignment. Thomas Tuchel's all-conquering reigning champions, the recipients
03:43of the last eleven league titles, who had also won their first three matches.
03:48Naby Munich took an early lead in that game through new signing Harry Kane and,
03:52despite Grimaldo equalising, they eventually went 2-1 in front in the 86th minute.
03:58However, showing a new-found resilience, Leverkusen threw the proverbial Kurschen
04:04at them and won a 94th-minute penalty, midfielder Ezequiel Palacios levelling it at the death.
04:10The Bayern comeback preceded a run of eight consecutive league victories as Leverkusen
04:14topped the standings in late November. Draws against Dortmund and fellow surprise title
04:19challengers Stuttgart preceded a 3-0 win against Eintracht Frankfurt and a 4-0
04:24battering of Borschem to crown Leverkusen as Herbstmeister, which I'm 80% sure is how you
04:31say that, the unofficial title given to the league leaders at the winter break.
04:36But it wasn't merely that Leverkusen were winning. They were playing teams off the park with a style
04:41that squeezed the best out of their players. Boniface had registered 25 goal involvements
04:46at the halfway stage, Grimaldo, ostensibly a defender, 16. No midfielder in the Bundesliga
04:52had covered more ground or been more reliable in possession than Granit Xhaka, who Alonso
04:56described as the brain of this team. The jewel in the crown, however, had been 20-year-old
05:02Florian Wurz, a silky playmaker back from an ACL injury and in the Bundesliga top three for assists,
05:08key passes, dribbles and sprints. Their manager made them more than the sum of their parts,
05:13yes, but those parts were looking a lot higher in quality than anybody had realised.
05:18Leverkusen would then take 10 points from their first four Bundesliga matches of 2024.
05:23Their most tantalising showdown came in early February, with Bayern the visitors and just two
05:29points behind the underdogs, this felt like the moment they could wrestle back the title.
05:33But Leverkusen put on a show. 1-0 up after 18 minutes, as soap opera alert, Bayern loanee
05:41Josip Stanisic scored against his parent club, Grimaldo then doubled their lead in the 50th
05:46minute, before Jeremy Frimpong made it 3-0 in stoppage time. Tuchel's juggernauts,
05:52who'd switched to a back three purely to nullify Leverkusen, enjoyed more possession of the ball,
05:57yes, but were outmanoeuvred in almost every other way. Caution, though, would turn to genuine belief
06:03as they won their next seven league matches to make it nine on the bounce. One more win
06:09would not only make it 10 in a row, but end Leverkusen's 120-year wait for German supremacy.
06:16Of course though, because history just has a twisted sense of humour,
06:21next up was Werder Bremen, those shits, again. The narratives wrote themselves.
06:28The day of the game, thousands of fans gathered through the streets with flares,
06:32banners and scarves. There was an excitement in the air but also an unbearable anxiety
06:37over the idea of history repeating itself. Back in 2002, it took just five minutes for
06:43nerves to turn to despair as Bremen got in front. 22 years on, Boniface's 25th-minute penalty paved
06:50the way for a 5-0 rout, Wirtz capping his sensational campaign with a hat-trick that
06:56made a mockery of any pre-match butterflies. Even Schacker, so often an unsung hero in midfield,
07:02got his name on the scoresheet. At full-time, all hell broke loose.
07:07Accounts from various Leverkusen fans to 442 state they'd never experienced a celebration
07:13like that one. Just a feeling of immense relief, happiness. I'd been a ball of tension all week.
07:19Deep down, I was sure we'd do it, but I just needed it to be over. Just thinking about it
07:24still gives me goosebumps. Nowotny, too, drank it all in. It was absolutely crazy to witness,
07:30he told us. There was also a tiny bit of sadness in the back of my mind, though, because
07:34I saw what we could have given to the people of Leverkusen 22 years earlier. I was incredibly
07:40happy that the club had finally laid that ghost to rest, but the thought that we could have sparked
07:44a similar kind of happiness made it feel bittersweet. A beer-drenched Alonso, usually so
07:50composed, could not contain his delight. We have to enjoy and celebrate today with our families,
07:56friends and fans, he said, wiping suds from his eyes. This was my first full season as a coach.
08:01The feeling is amazing. Once the pitch invaders had departed, the celebrations decamped to pubs
08:07and street corners across Leverkusen. Neverkusen was dead, but their job still wasn't done. Their
08:14DFB-Pokal campaign had continued by ways of wins over Stuttgart and Dusseldorf,
08:19teeing up a final against second-tier Kaiserslautern in Berlin. There would be 97th and 96th-minute
08:26equalisers to earn draws against Dortmund and Gladbach respectively before their season was
08:30finished. It made them the first men's team to enjoy an unblemished Bundesliga campaign.
08:37Played 34-1-28, drawn six, lost zero. The Invincibles topped the table on 90 points,
08:44the second-highest in league history, with a 17-point gap to runners-up Stuttgart and
08:5118 to Bayern in third. And now, attention could turn to that treble. First up,
08:56Atalanta in the Europa League final and… finally, their luck did run out. In a rare
09:02tactical misstep, Alonso started with no recognised striker, Wurz playing in an
09:07unfamiliar false nine role, as Atalanta hit them on the break expertly to win 3-0.
09:13After 51 matches unbeaten, now the never-losing finally tasted defeat.
09:19But there was no time to mope, with Kaiserslautern up just three days later at Berlin's Olympus
09:24Stadion. Schalke shot Leverkusen ahead after 16 minutes, and not even a first-half red card
09:29could affect the outcome. An historic double, if not a continental treble, was theirs.
09:36And despite persistent rumours across the summer, Wurz, Grimaldo, Fringpong, Boniface, Palacios,
09:41Tapsoba and, most importantly, Alonso all remain at Leverkusen as the club fight to defend both
09:48its titles and leave its mark in the Champions League. How they'll fare, and how long they'll
09:54stay, remains to be seen, but for 12 glorious months in North Rhine-Westphalia, they changed
10:00a decades-old narrative of hard luck stories into one of football's greatest tales of triumph.
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