In the end, Alonso’s team was known to be German champions. Undefeated and 18 points ahead of the Tuchel team, which even lost the runner-up title to VfB Stuttgart on the last match day. National player and Leverkusen top performer Robert Andrich promptly came to Munich with the announcement: “There’s not just Bayern Munich, there’s also Bayer Leverkusen. Now it’s Bayer Leverkusen time, now there’s finally a good German champion.”
Matthäus also said in his column on Sky that Bayer’s championship title was “one of the most deserved in German football history, if not the most deserved.” But the rivalry didn’t end there; it only really started in the transfer summer. At the center: Jonathan Tah.
The national player was initially courted by FC Bayern and is said to have already agreed on a move with the club. According to media reports, Bavaria’s sports director Max Eberl was particularly interested in a move from Tah. However, the transfer fell through. The scene then moved from the sporty to those in charge.
Leverkusen’s CEO, Fernando Carro, said at a fan festival: “I don’t think anything of Max Eberl, absolutely nothing. I wouldn’t negotiate with him.” Eberl then told Sport1 in a “one-two” that Carro had been angry with him since he commented on Florian Wirtz’s move from 1. FC Köln to Leverkusen in 2020. At that time there was supposedly an agreement between Leverkusen, Gladbach, Cologne and Düsseldorf not to poach youth players from each other. Eberl commented on this at the time, which probably displeased Carro.
However, it does not seem to have been the last rivalry attack, as the Ulreich case now shows, and the season has only just begun.
