Germany | Bayer Leverkusen wins its first title in 120 years of existence

(Leverkusen) Bayer Leverkusen won its first German championship title in 120 years of existence on Sunday thanks to its home victory against Werder Bremen (5-0), ending 11 seasons of hegemony for Bayern Munich on German football.

With five games remaining, Xabi Alonso’s men are 16 points ahead of their pursuers, and can no longer be caught at the top of the Bundesliga.

After the victories the day before for Bayern against Cologne (2-0) and Stuttgart against Eintracht Frankfurt (3-0), Bayer was obliged to win against Bremen to celebrate this historic title with its 30,000 spectators gathered in the BayArena, celebratory title scarves around their necks before kickoff.

Nigerian international Victor Boniface, Leverkusen’s joint top scorer this season (11 league goals), put his team on the right track in the 25th^e minute, Granit Xhaka doubled the lead in the 68th^e and Florian Wirtz, who came on at the start of the second half, set the BayArena on fire with a hat-trick.

The pitch was then invaded by Leverkusen supporters a few seconds before the end of the match, in an exceptional atmosphere.

The pedestal on which Bayern Munich had been enthroned for more than a decade had already cracked at its base last season on the occasion of the eleventh coronation snatched in extremis – and on goal difference – from the hands of Borussia Dortmund on a goal by Jamal Musiala in the 88th^e minute of the last day.

Neglected at the start of the season

To put an end to Bayern’s domination, Bayer Leverkusen was only an underdog at the start of the season, while the club has for more than two decades been given the inglorious nickname of “Neverkusen” (from the English “never”, mocking this chronic inability to win the national title (notably in 2000 and 2002).

But this season, the team coached since the fall of 2022 by the Spaniard no European Cup). To make Bayern Munich pale in their best seasons under the Pep Guardiola era.

And it was ultimately Bayern Munich who ended up cracking during a catastrophic month of February (four points taken out of twelve possible, when Leverkusen was full). Then we still had to hold on.

In the second half of the season, the “Werkself” – the “factory eleven” – showed unshakeable faith in itself, offering a real ode to patience (six matches since January with goals in the added time of the second half to result in five victories and a draw).

Xabi Alonso in the big leagues

At 42, Xabi Alonso made his first coaching experience a triumphant entry into the big leagues, having lifted the club on the outskirts of Cologne from 17 last season.^e at 6^e place to ensure a European presence in 2023/24 and lifting the “Werkself” to the semi-finals of the Europa League.

With his team, he was able to create an attractive game, based however on a solid defensive foundation. This season, his team is still in the running in the Europa League (quarter-final return Thursday in London against West Ham after a 2-0 first leg victory) and in the German Cup (final on May 25 against Kaiserslautern, resident of 2^e division).

And it’s perhaps not over, since the strategic coach has decided to continue the adventure in Leverkusen next season, despite the desires of two major Europeans, Liverpool in search of a successor to Jürgen Klopp, and Bayern Munich, which decided to end its collaboration with Thomas Tuchel at the end of the season.

“I think that most of the players will be kept,” estimated Rudi Völler, current sporting director of the German selection and emblematic figure of the management of Leverkusen in the 1990s and 2000s, probably with the jewel Florian in mind. Wirtz.

Bayern Munich is therefore not German champion, a simple sentence which has not been uttered since the spring of 2013. The end of a record era for one of the five major European championships.