If anyone thought that Bayer Leverkusen would soften over the summer, think again.
Xabi Alonso has built a team that will give nothing to anyone, under any circumstances, and are in no mood to surrender an unbeaten domestic record which stretches back to May 2023.
On Saturday, Leverkusen, who won a league and cup double last season, defeated Stuttgart in the German Super Cup, winning 5-4 on penalties. That does not tell the story. At full time, after an abrasive, nasty game, Gloria Estefan’s I Will Survive played over the BayArena public address system, and that was more descriptive.
Somehow, someway — yet again — Leverkusen refused to lose.
They actually took the lead on the night, with Victor Boniface prodding home from close range after 11 minutes. But Stuttgart are talented and equalised quickly with a flowing move that was finished by Enzo Millot.
Then, the adversity. Martin Terrier was signed from Rennes over the summer and 37 minutes into his debut he caught Ermedin Demirovic high and late, and was rightly shown a red card. Early in the second half, Deniz Undav’s goal put Stuttgart 2-1 in front and in touching distance of their first Super Cup since 1992.
And that was a title they wanted. VfB were ferocious in its pursuit. Their football was slick and classy, but they came with the intention of challenging physically, too, and after Undav slid home his goal — his first since making his loan move from Brighton permanent over the summer — it seemed inevitable that Leverkusen would face defeat in Germany for the first time in 15 months.
Not so fast. Alonso was experimental in his lineup, giving debuts to Terrier — fatefully — and to Aleix Garcia, signed from Girona over the summer. He left Florian Wirtz, Jonathan Tah, Alex Grimaldo, Jeremie Frimpong and Patrick Schick on the bench and so, of course, having that power in reserve told.
Tah was introduced after the red card to bolster the defence. The other four appeared in the second half, immediately helping to seize the momentum.
Stuttgart are a formidable opponent, and one nobody in this year’s Champions League will enjoy playing. In any other season, they would have been the story last year. Sebastian Hoeness took them from 16th to second within a single season and had them playing some of the most lively attacking football in the Bundesliga. On Saturday, they brought that technical challenge to the BayArena, but also something else — something that Leverkusen will have to contend with week-to-week.
Everyone wants to be the team to beat them. Every side they face will ratchet up the intensity and aggression, in pursuit of their own bit of history. Stuttgart are perhaps one of the few teams in the country capable of outplaying Leverkusen for periods, and their supremacy did seem to unsettle their hosts.
Stuttgart’s Enzo Millot celebrates his equaliser (Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images)
Alonso, who is usually so urbane and calm, was animated in his technical area and cautioned for dissent. Granit Xhaka scowled his way through most of the second half. Edmond Tapsoba squared up to Demirovic at a set piece.
The story was becoming obvious. Leverkusen, who had forgotten how to lose with any grace, were about to be derailed by a hungrier team. Stuttgart had more to prove and were determined to send a message to the rest of the league. At full time, Alonso and his players could simply point to the red card, their weakened starting eleven and — obviously — everything they achieved in 2023-24 in mitigation, before focusing on their title defence starting for real next weekend.
Fair enough, because have they not earned the right to think that way? To keep something in reserve, especially with the new challenge of the Champions League on the horizon?
Yes, but no. From 70 minutes onwards, Leverkusen produced a surge of furious power — the kind of force that does not really belong in a Super Cup. The tackles flew in. Players were barging each other at set pieces and fronting-up after every challenge. Almost through sheer force of will, Leverkusen started to control the ball and push Stuttgart back, and ten men started to seem like twelve or thirteen.
And when it mattered, two minutes from the end, they cut through the VfB defence with precision, sending Schick through to equalise before winning on penalties.
In a sense, we have seen this all before. Late, improbable comebacks are what last season’s double was built on. Against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena. Against Borussia Dortmund at the Westfalenstadion. Against Hoeness’s Stuttgart back in April, when Robert Andrich snatched a draw with a goal in stoppage time.
But over time it has become something different — less about rescuing points, more about protecting aura. Leverkusen were doing this when the title was already won last season. That draw in Dortmund and that Andrich goal against Stuttgart were memorable but pragmatically pointless. And yet Alonso’s players pursued both in a frenzy, as if everything was on the line.
It is a habit that has stuck and it means that they inhabit strange territory. It is less than they keep winning, more the way that they do.
Wily champions know when to push the pedal to the floor. How many times in England, for instance, have an underwhelming Manchester City meandered through the first half of a season, only to emerge and conquer all in the New Year? How often have Bayern Munich done the same — they have never won the Bundesliga undefeated and often seemed comfortable easing off, at ease with the bigger picture. Between 2012 and 2022, Bayern played ten consecutive Super Cups and lost four, each time to urgent opponents, desperate to bruise their ego. Not once, however, did they then fail to win the league.
Leverkusen are not the same. Still they play every game as if it is their last, desperate to show that there is no hole that they cannot and will not dig themselves out of. It seems unsustainable — and yet everybody has been saying that for months.
(Top photo: Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images)
Read the full article here