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I do not lobby to be here: Xabi Alonso, the man and the coach, and how he’s become the favourite to be Liverpool’s next manager

Published

10 months ago

March 5, 2024

I don not lobby to be here: Xabi Alonso, the man and the coach, and how he’s become the favourite to be Liverpool’s next manager

Special report as Paul Gorst speaks to Anfield legend Jamie Carragher and German football expert Seb Stafford-Bloor about Xabi Alonso, the Bayer Leverkusen boss tipped to succeed Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool manager

LEVERKUSEN, GERMANY – FEBRUARY 10: Bayer 04 Leverkusen head coach Xabi Alonso looks on prior to the Bundesliga match between Bayer 04 Leverkusen and FC Bayern München at BayArena on February 10, 2024 in Leverkusen, Germany. (Photo by Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images)

Xabi Alonso looks on prior to the Bundesliga match between Bayer 04 Leverkusen and FC Bayern München at BayArena on February 10, 2024 (Image: Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images)

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For Liverpool fans of a certain vintage, the name Bayer Leverkusen will always induce a wince and a longing for what might have been.

It’s nearly 22 years now since Gerard Houllier’s UEFA Cup holders nudged themselves into the last eight of the European Cup before a 4-2 defeat to the German side saw them eliminated 5-3 on aggregate.

Michael Ballack’s power and class, a misguided Houllier assertion that his team were “10 games from greatness”, and a harrowing quarter-final exit from the Champions League are all part of the Leverkusen iconography in the mind’s eye of the Anfield faithful.

In the modern era, that is changing. Now, Reds fans from all over the world are tuning in to see how Xabi Alonso is faring in charge of a team who he has guided from second bottom to top spot in the Bundesliga in less than 18 months. The fact his charges are also in possession of a five-point advantage over perennial winners Bayern Munich makes it even more impressive.

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And with Jurgen Klopp having announced his bombshell decision to step away from Anfield after nine largely decorated years at the helm, interest in Alonso’s fortunes from a Liverpool perspective has ramped up ten-fold in recent weeks.

So the 2005 Champions League winner picked the perfect night to showcase his coaching talents to the wider forum of European football last week when his Leverkusen side dismantled the Bundesliga behemoth that is Bayern 3-0 to take firm control in the title race.

It wasn’t so much an evening where Alonso announced himself to the wider world as a manager but the night where he pulled up a megaphone and did so in a manner that would have made the Wolf of Wall Street himself, Jordan Belfort, blush. “I’m not f****** leaving!” Top spot, that is.

“If this was another manager who was having this season at Leverkusen, I am sure he would come into Liverpool’s thoughts,” says Jamie Carragher. “Listen, you could see straight away [at Liverpool] he was a real football lover and he wasn’t just a great player. He was always interested in tactics and he had a great idea about football at a young age and I think that has helped him really.”

It was the sort of swaggering, uncompromising performance against the undisputed kings of the Bundesliga that evoked memories of 2011 when Bayern were swept aside in similarly convincing fashion by the last team to have beaten them to a top-flight title in Borussia Dortmund.

A 3-1 defeat to Dortmund, who were managed by a certain Jurgen Klopp in February 2011, had them virtually queuing up at the Allianz to crown their visitors as the next champions of Germany as BVB secured their first win away to Bayern in 19 years.

“Most of my boys were still being breast-fed then,” Klopp is said to have joked after that game as Bayern were reported in local media to have resembled “driftwood in a sea of yellow and black”. It was Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke’s insistence that he “couldn’t give a s*** about the championship today,” because he was “too happy with the way we played” that provided the most unique observation on the day however.

Thirteen years later, it was perhaps worth dusting off that succinct, no-nonsense summary to accurately describe how Alonso’s side had also overwhelmed their exalted visitors. As a result, Die Werskelf remain unbeaten this season with just four draws among their 21 league games.

Their 22 victories from 35 games across 2023 was a new club record and that form has yet to tail off at the mid-February point. There’s a reason their tongue-in-cheek nickname has gone from Neverkusen to Neverlosen and something is most certainly being built at the BayArena. This is no fluke.

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“If you look at the summer recruitment and how that has suited Alonso, that’s a good example [of how he works with his sporting director],” says Seb Stafford-Bloor, European football writer for The Athletic. “Xhaka, Hofmann, and Grimaldo arrived, because the club wanted a different type of dressing room chemistry. All of those players were agreed upon by Alonso and Simon Rolfes (sporting director) and the way they’ve been used – and how important they’ve been throughout the season – demonstrates how aligned they each are with one another.”

The fearsome defensive partnership of Timothy Tapsoba and Jonathan Tah has helped Bayer record a league low of just 14 goals conceded, while players who had previously been cast aside elsewhere around Europe, such as Granit Xhaka (Arsenal), Jeremie Frimpong (Celtic) and Nathan Tella (Southampton), have shown those judgements to have been premature under the tutelage of Alonso.

Ten-goal Victor Boniface has been a real find from Belgian outfit Union Saint-Gilloise, while Piero Hincapie, the left-footed Ecuador defender, has reportedly been attracting attention of scouts from Anfield due to his own form.

Alex Grimaldo, who registered his eighth goal of the season in the win over Bayern, has been a revelation as an adventurous, free-spirited left-wing-back, while Florian Wirtz is the fleet-footed creative fulcrum. His return after rupturing a cruciate ligament cannot be overstated in all of this.

Despite the number of players enjoying superlative campaigns, however, there is a feeling that much of it has been masterminded by the tactical invention of Alonso, whose astute and measured observations during his time as a head coach have remained true to the type of classy, ball-playing style that helped make his name as a player.

As a player, Alonso has sat at the heel of many greats. At Real Madrid, it was Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti; at Bayern Munich, it was Pep Guardiola; and at Liverpool, Rafa Benitez. As one of more cerebral midfielders in an era that saw the relentless pressing of German influence replace the elegant possession-based approach more favoured across Spain, Alonso has watched and learned as the game has changed during a period that saw his own playing days merge into his coaching years. As a result, it feels as though his ideals have been taken from each lane to all meet at the same intersection.

Carragher tells the ECHO: “I think that can only help any manager with their different experiences in different countries and different styles of football. You think of some of the managers he’d had, in the modern generation, he’s had all the best ones and also his father was a player or a manager, too, so he’s just had football in his life constantly, and the clubs he’s played for, the calibre of manager and also the calibre of player was as well.

“He was a thinking-man’s player; he didn’t rely on his physicality, it was more his brain. So even before he’s shown himself as a great manager, he is someone who I think people might’ve thought he could be a top manager.”

Alonso’s first move in charge back in October 2022 was to switch to a 3-4-3 formation that sought to allow the opposition time on the ball against a more compact system that closed the spaces behind their midfield. It led to fewer concessions before work went into developing the team as a more productive outfit in the final third, using the pace of players like Moussa Diaby, now of Aston Villa, and Mitchell Bakker.

It is the speed and execution in those transitions that will be most recognisable to Liverpool supporters, with the Reds regarded as one of the most devastating around when those spaces open up. Playmaker Wirtz’s comeback was also key to the upturn.

Across 96 teams in Europe’s top-five leagues this term, Leverkusen rank first for passes-per-game (683), short passes (646) and their percentage of short passes (95%), while they are in second for 10-pass sequences (22.6). It all points towards a coach who anoints possession as king in the same manner as Guardiola at Manchester City.

Carragher says: “When you think of his background and where he comes from, the teams he played for, it shouldn’t surprise that there’s a Pep Guardiola influence. He had the influence at Bayern for a couple of seasons and Pep is a massive influence on everyone in football, especially Spanish players I would imagine.

“You think of when Spain had their success in the World Cup (2010) and the Euros (2008 and 2012) that was when Barcelona were at their peak as well (under Guardiola). They were dominant so that football was almost copied by everyone, so it shouldn’t surprise that he is similar to Pep.”

“To an extent [they are similar] and Alonso has spoken before about Guardiola’s influence,” says Bundesliga expert Stafford-Bloor. “But I do think there are differences. Alonso’s use of Jeremie Frimpong, for instance, is more aggressive. How he creates space for his internal players – like Wirtz – also contrasts with what might be expected from a Guardiola team.

“Leverkusen are quite patient with the ball. They’re good at pressing, but not particularly intense. So, there are plenty of comparisons, but Alonso’s style seems a bit looser – his players express themselves a touch more and don’t seem quite as structured in the way they build moves.”

What is inescapable, though, are Alonso’s links to Anfield that were forged in the mid-to-late 2000s. A Champions League and FA Cup winner in 2005 and 2006, he was also a star of a team that finished runners-up in the 2007 European Cup to AC Milan before running Manchester United to within a whisker of the Premier League title two years later.

“Liverpool fans aren’t daft and they fell in love with him straight away as a player and they could see what he was about,” Carragher adds. “When he came he moved into the centre and into the Albert Dock and he wanted to immerse himself into the city, so he is a good guy, down to earth who doesn’t get too carried away.”

A fan-favourite from day one, Liverpool’s fans were instantly in the thrall of Alonso after his 2004 arrival from Real Sociedad as he provided the velvet glove to the steel fist of Steven Gerrard in the centre of Benitez’s midfield. That, inevitably, will provide him with the groundswell of support any incoming manager will need, whoever it is who replaces Klopp; a manager who walks away as a legendary figure, whatever happens between now and the end of the campaign.

“I think succeeding Klopp is practically impossible,” says Stafford-Bloor. “Does Alonso have the same emotionally reachable qualities? Is he going to mimic Klopp’s interactions with the crowd at Anfield? No.

“He doesn’t seem like that kind of persona at all. He’s a bit more stoic, but he’s still impressive and possesses an obvious gravitas. He’s an excellent communicator, speaks German and English to a really high level, and clearly commands respect with players because of what he’s achieved in the game.”

The man himself, speaking back in 2018, said: “Yes for sure, I have dreamt of [managing Liverpool]. But first I have to prove myself and prepare. First I have to prove myself and to prepare but you know if I decide somewhere along the way to take my chances as a manager, my link, my commitment, my passion with Liverpool is there and, you know, why not? We will see if we can cross paths in our ways.”

As the outstanding candidate to replace Klopp later this year as things stand, those paths might yet cross sooner rather than later. And until then, you can be sure Liverpool will be watching over at Leverkusen, gradually forgetting about that game in 2002.