Beating Bayern on and off the pitch – How Leverkusen built Alonso’s title-winning squad

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First league title in 119 years 

Bayer Leverkusen made history on Sunday afternoon, when an x-x win over Werder Bremen confirmed the club’s first Bundesliga title in their 199 year history. No other club in Germany has finished second in the Bundesliga more times than Leverkusen, who until now have often been labelled “Neverkusen” by rival fans. But this season’s success now means that the BayArena side have finally been able to shake off the apparent curse and can now call themselves German champions. 

Such success on the pitch has naturally caught the eye of football fans around the world, who have watched on with delight and a degree of jealousy as “Die Werkself” have dominated the Bundesliga with a possession-based style of football implemented by young head coach Xabi Alonso. This, in turn, has seen Alonso been heavily linked with moves to Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and most recently Liverpool. However, the young Spaniard has committed his future to Leverkusen next season, where he will begin only his second full season at the club as a reigning German champion. 

Naturally, Alonso deserves a huge amount of the credit for Leverkusen’s first ever league title. But there’s certainly a case to be made that club director of sport, Simon Rolfes, has been just as instrumental in creating the team that Alonso took to new heights. The new German champions may have marched to the top of the league table by beating other clubs on the pitch all season, but Leverkusen have been running circles around their domestic rivals off it for some time too. 

While Alonso has certainly overseen the arrival of some very impressive new players at Leverkusen this season, such as Nathan Tella, Victor Boniface, Jonas Hofmann and perhaps most importantly Granit Xhaka, it’s worth noting that the majority of his key stars have been players that he inherited from his predecessor at the club. Indeed, eight of Leverkusen’s most used 11 players this season were at the club before Alonso took charge mid-way through last season. As such, this league title should be considered a remarkable achievement in Alonso improving the players that were carefully scouted and signed prior to his arrival, rather than the club simply outspending their rivals – which is often the case in other leagues and indeed how Bayern have dominated the German top-flight for so long. 

Since Rolfes was appointed sporting director in December 2018 (promoted to director of sport in 2022) and since then Leverkusen have spent €329.6 million on signing new players. That may seem like a lot, but it’s only the fourth highest figure in the Bundesliga and almost one third of Bayern’s total (€611m) for the same period of time. Indeed, the starting XI for Sunday’s title-winning victory over Werder Bremen was made up of 10 players signed since Rolfes began calling the shots at the club and cost just €132.3 million in combined transfer fees. In stark contrast, Bayern have spent over €160m on central defenders alone in the last three seasons. 

However, signing good players is one thing and developing them into even better ones is something else entirely. And that combination is what has made Leverkusen such a force of nature over the past few seasons. Since Alonso arrived at the BayArena, five of the top 10 Bundesliga players with the largest increase in market value are Leverkusen players. Exequiel Palacios, Alejandro Grimaldo and Jeremie Frimpong have all seen their market values increase by €25m, Boniface’s market value has risen by €36m and Florian Wirtz has seen his market value rise by €40m to where he now stands as the joint most valuable player in the German top-flight with a market value of €110m. 

Indeed, since 2018, no club has added more market value to their squad than Leverkusen, whose value has risen by €190m. In fact, when we take the combined transfer fees of Leverkusen’s squad (€226m) and contrast it with the squad’s overall market value (€595m), the difference between the two (€368.9m) is the second highest in the division and more than the combined difference at RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund (€326m). In other words, only one club in the Bundesliga has managed to buy low and develop their players into bigger stars than Leverkusen. And that’s down to clever scouting, smart business in the transfer window and finally finding a head coach that can unlock the clear potential in this team. 

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