“Understood what to do” Bayer Leverkusen discovers its new face October 2nd, 2024, 1:02 p.m. Double winners and in the European Cup final – last season went perfectly for Bayer Leverkusen. Or? There is still potential for improvement, as is evident in these weeks. The Champions League also helps Xabi Alonso’s team. This is certainly a warning to the competition. At the end of an educational evening, Xabi Alonso was extremely proud. In the midst of the maturation process, the Bayer Leverkusen coach raved about his team’s “very serious and mature performance”, he highlighted the double winner’s “Champions League mindset” and, after the next exclamation mark, sent an almost warning message to the competition . “We understood what needed to be done,” emphasized Alonso. What did the success coach mean by that? The champions, who played close to perfection in the previous season, look ready for the next step in their development. And Europe’s largest football stage is increasingly emerging as the perfect environment for this learning process. The performance in the hard-fought 1-0 (0-0) against the Italian top club AC Milan impressively demonstrated exactly that. “This experience and this feeling can be important for the future,” said Alonso, whose team played in the final phase against Milan had made an unexpected change of style. Instead of increasing with their usual offensive power after Victor Boniface took the lead (51st), Bayer switched to defensive mode. “Defending a result,” emphasized Alonso, “is what we need if we want to be in the Champions League for a long time.”Milan provides a lessonIt is unexpected skills that are leading Leverkusen to success these days. There was a lot of discussion at the start of the season about the Werkself’s shaky defense. After the defense had stabilized in Munich (1:1) at the expense of the offense, the challenges in the premier class are gradually leading to the perfect balance. “We are good with the ball,” said driver Granit Xhaka – and added with a view to the two of them Wins without conceding a goal in the Champions League. “But you can also see that if we are disciplined and bring this mentality onto the pitch, it is brutally difficult to score goals against us.” Sports director Simon Rolfes noted favorably that Leverkusen “showed defensive resilience at the right time” against Milan. The fact that Bayer didn’t have more possession of the ball than their opponents twice in a row seems unusual. It will be exciting to see how the team can turn the switch after two highlight games. Can this process, which is intended to take Leverkusen to an even higher level, be pushed forward in the home game against Holstein Kiel on Saturday (3:30 p.m./Sky and in the ntv.de live ticker)? “If we have the feeling that we can only win against Kiel with 70 percent, that would be completely wrong. That shouldn’t happen to us,” warned Xhaka. However, it was “one of our strengths” in the previous season. “We have enough experience in the team.”And a lot of new insights from the Milan game. This premier class lesson, which was strenuous for some, was “not easy,” Alonso admitted, “but it was a real step forward.”
Source link
“Understood what to do”: Bayer Leverkusen discovers its new face
