Everything seems to be perfectly falling in place for Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen right now.
With every passing week, the perennial runners-up look like shaking off their historic Neverkusen tag to actually go and do it this time.
This is a club that have never won the Bundesliga, but finished runners-up on five occasions. They’ve won the DfB Pokal just once, losing a further three finals, while their most famous hour was losing the 2002 Champions League final to Real Madrid and that Zizou volley.
Leverkusen could have a fifty-point lead at the summit of the Bundesliga and their long-suffering fans would be justified in having caution until they’re mathematically over the line. Having witnessed heartbreak after heartbreak, a kind of fatalism sets in whereby you’re just waiting for the moment that the wheels finally fall off.
For a few heart-stopping seconds in Friday night’s 2-1 victory over Mainz, that moment looked like it might have arrived. Granit Xhaka opened the scoring after just two minutes and wheeled away to celebrate, before pulling up and doing an Oscar-worthy impression of a player that’s just done his hammy. The hobbling hop. The pained expression.
The former Arsenal man has been absolutely pivotal in Leverkusen’s transformation into a relentless winning machine. The best midfielder in the Bundesliga this season. A genuinely mature leader at the heart of everything they’re building. A player they simply can’t afford to lose.
Cue Alonso on the touchline gesturing to his physios. Before quickly realising this was all a brilliantly choreographed ruse. A wry smile appearing on the Basque coach’s face as he realises it was all a false alarm and his ship remains on course for glory.
But for all the fun and games
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