Never say Neverkusen again
History turns a page and I couldn't be happier. Sometimes in this increasingly dark sport, the good guys win
It’s been fun to mock Bayer Leverkusen as “Neverkusen” through the years. Few people are more guilty of it than I am. But now the club has turned the page on a history that saw it once throw away three potential trophies in two weeks during 2002 and had never won a major domestic honor before this weekend. For the first time since 2009, someone other than Bayern or Dortmund (BVB) have won the Bundesliga title.
Leverkusen has long been the nearly team. The side you can safely say will finish in the top six in the Bundesliga but never win it. The side you can assume has some great pieces like Zé Roberto, Lucio, Michael Ballack , Son Heung-min and Kai Havertz that you knew would leave the club before winning anything. It is also the club that tended to give Americans chances more than any other in Europe until Fulham emerged.
In 2015, Christopher Harris and myself traveled Bayer Leverkusen to spend a few days at the club. At the time I viewed Leverkusen as an evil corporate club - an eyesore in a world of virtue and egalitarianism otherwise in German football (I had a very romantic view of the Bundesliga and 50+1 ownership structure, that as I’ve gotten more business-savvy and focused on football as being more about business than the actual play on the pitch, I have become more pragmatic about this). I left that visit convinced Leverkusen was a more homely and family club than Schalke, Eintracht Frankfurt or BVB - these huge supporter owned clubs that were in fact more driven by corproate sponsorship and relationships than Leverkusen was by its association with the Bayer corporation.
At BayArena in December 2015
During that visit to Leverkusen in a media briefing the clubs Chairman had complained that they could afford to keep a fan favorite like Son at the club. Despite their reputation as a corporate-driven exception to Germany’s hipster clubs and 50+1, we learned that day they are in fact a SELLING club and that their fans hadn’t come around yet to understand that.
Leverkusen vs Schalke 04 in December 2015. Photo by self.
Since that visit in 2015, I’ve followed Leverkusen relatively closely and one thing has been clear until Xabi Alonso arrived as manager- the nearly men still had a mental block. Whether it was Johnathan Tah’s horrible giveaway in stoppage time vs Bayern right before the winter break in 2020 that flushed away a lead in the Bundesliga or drama in Europe (I recall in 2016, players almost coming to blows with one another after a missed opportunity to get out of the Group Stage of UEFA Champions League), Leverkusen continued to be that sort of big club you could safely assume wouldn’t be relegated (unlike Schalke and Hamburg) and would have sell-able players while never winning a darn thing.
That all changed in January when with Bayern only a few points behind Leverkusen in the table and breathing down their necks, only two point back. It felt like dejavu from previous seasons when either Dortmund or Leipzig have huffed and puffed but after the winter break, Bayern took control.
But in two successive matches away from home against good opposition (Augsburg and Leipzig), Leverkusen got late stoppage time winners. It was after the Leipzig match that Johnathan Starling and I chatted that this wasn’t another tease like BVB. We weren’t sure if they’d get to the finish line but boy would they make Bayern sweat.
Two weeks later, in a very un-Dortmund like performance, Leverkusen comprehensively blew Bayern apart. It was at that moment we knew, yes they could win this title - and probably would.
And they have.
In this day and age I am very jaded about football. I tend to focus on local and lower division stuff here in the US and abroad because I feel the game is less corrupted at that level. Despite trying to enjoy the sport, my views on business and corporate behavior don’t allow me to simply say I love watching Arsenal or Juventus or MLS’ single-entity structure because they have the best players. Football has always been about community and supporters first and foremost for me. Even in this days of heady business and marketing might, the real aim of the game has to be to community-focused and about as many local players being developed as possible, in my opinion.
While Bayer is a multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company (not wanting to get political here but my negative views on Pharma and their influence on American media and both political parties is quite robust) the club itself doesn’t depend on huge infusions of cash from its parent company nor has it lost its small-town community feel.
Throw in Xabi Alonso and his pedigree as a player, leading this club to glory and you realize, sometimes the good guys can still win this sport at the highest levels.
They've made an epic run this season. It's way past time for someone else to win the league, and i wouid love to see Stuttgart come in second. The Bayern Munich people would completely melt down over a third place finish
Leverkusen still hasn't lost a game this season, which I find amazing. Can they go undefeated or will they slip a little in the league now that the trophy is in hand? Can Kaiserslautern pull off what would have to be one of the top cupsets ever to beat them in the DFB Pokal final? (probably not but you never know until the game is played.) And there is still the Europa League to win. Still a lot left to watch as the season winds down.