Before he was a candidate for Real Madrid, he was the answer at Bayer Leverkusen. A manager forged by midfield mastery, raised on positional play—went onto redefining it in Germany.
When Xabi Alonso walked into the BayArena in October 2022, the table showed Leverkusen second from bottom. The team was dysfunctional, uninspired, and tactically fragile. What followed wasn’t a traditional rescue job. It was a quiet reconstruction—one without exaggeration, but full of intention.
Alonso didn’t just install a new shape or motivate underperforming players. He rewired the entire footballing language of the club. From positional rotations to pressing triggers, from verticality to defensive structure, Leverkusen began to behave like a side that belonged to a different weight class. Not in budget—in belief.
His Leverkusen team is one of abstraction and discipline. Nominally a 3-4-2-1, the formation is a scaffolding—a temporary suggestion. In the first phase of buildup, it may stretch into a 3-2-5; in possession, a 4-3-3 emerges with asymmetric full-backs. When defending deep, the whole system tucks into a tight 5-4-1. Transitions are seamless, guided less by shape and more by spatial awareness.
“Control is not always with the ball,” Alonso once said. “Sometimes control is where you are when the other team has it.”
That control begins with how they press. In 2022–23, Leverkusen averaged just 3.5 possessions won in the final third per game—the worst in the Bundesliga. A year later, they led the league with 6.6 per game. Their PPDA dropped from 14.46 (2nd worst) to 12.69 (8th best), reflecting a more coordinated, front-foot approach. Palacios and Frimpong, the lungs and legs of the press, don’t close space—they suffocate it.
Triggers are well-drilled—a horizontal ball across the backline, a receiver under pressure near the touchline, a backwards pass. The moment the trap is sprung, the press is instant and merciless. If the first line doesn’t win the ball, the second swarms. And when they recover it, they do so in zones that hurt.
This intensity wasn’t born overnight. In Alonso’s first season (2022–23), Leverkusen showed glimpses of what would come—a willingness to press high, a midfield willing to absorb and counter. But it often lacked balance—the structure wavered under pressure. By the following season, the press was no longer reactive. It was premeditated.
The same evolution is visible in their passing structures. The sterile U-shapes of early 2022–23 gave way to ascending diagonals. By 2023–24, pass clusters revealed a carefully choreographed progression through the left half-space. Wirtz, Grimaldo, and Hofmann rotate like clockwork—one drops, one advances, one flares. Wirtz, in particular, receives in disconnected channels, between midfield and defensive lines. He operates in ambiguity—the most dangerous kind.
There’s symmetry in how wide players are used, but not similarity. Grimaldo is the passer. Frimpong is the dribbler. The former was among the league’s top creators from full-back, His long diagonals and clever cut-backs stretch and compress the pitch at will. The latter, Frimpong, doesn’t always arrive with control—but always with intent. His progressive carries created chaos even when they failed. Compare his output season-to-season and the uptick is unmistakable: Alonso turned his raw athleticism into calculated danger.
Alonso’s midfield pairing functioned like a split atom. Xhaka orbited the center-circle like a satellite—always available, never panicked. Palacios roams, breaks play, and ensures the game’s tempo never drifts. In 2022–23, Alonso struggled to find the perfect partner for Palacios. The arrival of Xhaka a year later didn’t just solve the problem—it redefined the midfield’s identity. Together, they form the structural axis around which risk is allowed. When one full-back pushes, the other tucks in. When Wirtz vacates space, Hofmann occupies it. This is not choreography for its own sake. It’s movement with a motive—and that motive is control.
“We’ve already reached our main target – to be champions – but we want to keep going, we don’t want to stop. There are still three games (in the Bundesliga). We want to stay unbeaten for the rest of the season.”
— Xabi Alonso, via AP News, Three games away from an Invincible season in 2024
The quote doesn’t just reflect ambition—it captures Alonso’s tactical DNA: discipline until the end. Not the kind born from fear, but from an internal logic. If structure is your identity, you don’t abandon it once the objective is reached. You double down.
But control doesn’t mean rigidity. It makes room for artists. Wirtz is the freedom within the framework, the off-script actor in a tightly-written play. His 138 take-ons and 82 passes into the penalty area in 2023-24 are expressions of autonomy, not rebellion. In 2022–23, he was coming off injury. In 2023–24, he looked like the best player in Germany. Alonso allows that—because when the system is watertight, one wildcard won’t undo it. It’ll enhance it.
The temptation is to romanticize Alonso as the elegant midfielder turned philosopher-king. But his coaching is more pragmatic than poetic. His systems are built on hard data, positional logic, and disciplined risk-taking. Leverkusen’s football may feel expressive — and it is—but it’s also exhaustive, repeatable, and ruthlessly effective.
And now, with Real Madrid as his next project, the question is no longer whether Alonso is ready for the next level. It’s whether the next level is ready for him. They won’t just be getting a former player with charisma. They’ll be inheriting a tactical architecture that has already conquered Germany. Quietly, cleverly, and completely.