'I'm Basque, with a big German influence' - Why Alonso is Europe's most in-demand head coach

Many would assume that Xabi Alonso’s managerial career began when he arrived at Bayer Leverkusen or even when he was learning his trade as Real Sociedad’s second team manager. But for the Spanish tactician, his first introduction to football management came at home when he was still a child of eight or nine. While the future Champions League winner was playing with his toys, his father was in the other room, desperately trying to devise the correct tactics to take San Sebastián to the play-offs of Spain’s Segunda División B. 

“For sure, the first one [to influence me] was my father,” noted the Leverkusen head coach when asked about the many coaches that have been a part of his life. “I remember being eight, nine, 10 and I was running around the living room and my father was in the studio preparing his things. I didn’t really understand what he was doing but I had that feeling at home.” That feeling has obviously stuck by the young man from the small Basque town of Tolosa in northern Spain. Whether it be Rafa Benítez at Liverpool, José Mourinho at Real Madrid or Carlo Ancelotti and Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich, Alonso has had the best tacticians in European football of the last 30 years to study at every stage of his career. And there’s little doubt that he’s now applying that to his first senior role in management in the German top-flight. 

Following a convincing 4-0 win over Union Berlin in mid November, Alonso’s side sat top of the Bundesliga with a remarkable 31 points from 11 games and firmly in the midst of the club’s first serious title challenge since 2010/11. That was made all the more impressive when we consider that his side were also undefeated in both cup competitions and that their points return in the league at that moment in time also matched a record set by Guardiola's Bayern side in 2015-16. And that’s not where the comparisons to Pep’s all-conquering Munich side end. Like his compatriot, Alonso arrived in Germany with the clear intention of using his background in Spanish coaching to apply a new style of football to the Bundesliga. A hybrid model that takes the best from tiki-taka and gegenpressing and in turn dominate opposing sides with high possession while also being capable of counter-pressing when the ball is lost deep inside the opposing half. And, just like Guardiola’s time in Bavaria, it seems to be working tremendously well. 

While Bayern lead the goalscoring charts in the Bundesliga, Alonso’s side sit second with an average of 2.78 goals per game and have so far scored 13 more goals than Borussia Dortmund. However, what makes Leverkusen so dangerous is the manner in which they demand possession and cede very little ground to the opposition, which in turn limits the time and space the other team gets in front of Lukas Hradecky’s goal. “We played similarly at Arsenal as well, a lot of possession but not just the possession,” noted Granit Xhaka after the aformentioned win over Union Berlin. “Without the ball, how we press, the opponents do not have a lot of chances during the game. I’m very happy at the moment with how things are going but we’ve still won nothing.” This is why Alonso’s team have conceded just 14 goals in the league this season (two less than Bayern) and enjoy a goal difference of +36, while last season’s title challengers, Dortmund, have so far only been able to muster +12 from 18 games. 

“Those last three years [in Munich] had a great influence and impact on my way out of football. To return to football where I finished, I felt closer to that,” noted Alonso when asked why he opted for Leverkusen as his first senior managerial job. “I tried to be curious about the manager’s work, not just playing, I was trying to ask to be close to them. I had that feeling already, when I was especially at Bayern in my last years. I was already thinking about how I could see myself in a few years.” As such, when Alonso was finally ready to make the step from youth football to senior management, it made sense to head back to the league that he had studied extensively while working under Guardiola. 

Of course, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Nor are title-challengers to Bayern. And while Leverkusen have always been one of the Bundesliga’s most successful clubs, the Spaniard inherited a team from Gerardo Seoane that was second bottom of the table after eight games. And while Alonso always had belief in his ability to apply his unique tactics to the team, he knew he would never get the opportunity if he didn’t plug the holes in defence and start winning games. “We were not a possession team last year, we were a transition team or a counter-attacking team and that was completely different to this season,” said Alonso when asked about the way his tactics have changed since he arrived at the club. “I’m not a fundamentalist that demands we have to play a certain way or that it is the only way that I will ever let my team play.”

However, it wasn’t just on the pitch that Alonso made big changes to Leverkusen. Often famed for bringing in young stars and selling them on to richer clubs, the Bundesliga side made a slight shift in their transfer policy following the arrival of Alonso and that has allowed the Spaniard to build a squad capable of going toe-to-toe with Bayern. Rather than focusing solely on young prospects ahead of this season, the club made three notable senior signings that Alonso had worked with or gotten to know in previous roles in the aforementioned Xhaka, Jonas Hofmann from Borussia Mönchengladbach and Alejandro Grimaldo from Benfica. All while ensuring only one star player was allowed to leave, as Moussa Diaby departed for Aston Villa. 

“It is fundamental,” replied Alonso when asked about the importance of keeping key players to challenge for silverware. “I will be a better manager if we are able to keep and to bring in good players. So that is direct. We had the big sale of Moussa [Diaby] obviously. But that’s something I knew could happen, from the first day the club explained it is normal that once a year a big player was sold. Not always, hopefully.” As a sign of how much faith Leverkusen put in their young head coach, the Bundesliga side began making plans for how the squad would look in the 2023/24 season in late 2022 and in return were able to identify what type of players were needed for Alonso’s style of football and the tactics he hoped to play. 

“I think that we have signed very strategic players to give us stability, to be reliable players, to be more efficient and consistent in our football,” noted Alonso, before explaining that each signing had to have certain characteristics and personality types. “I knew Granit [Xhaka], I knew Jonas [Hofmann], I knew [Alejandro] Grimaldo. I didn’t know [Victor] Boniface that much and he was a little bit different, but with those players we knew that they were going to have an almost instant influence in our game.”

To the Spanish manager’s credit, that’s exactly what each of those players have done this season. Hofmann is averaging a goal or assist every 109 minutes of football this season, ony four Bundesliga players have more goals and assists than Grimaldo so far, while only one player under the age of 23 (Erling Haaland at Manchester City) have more goals and assists than Boniface in Europe’s top five leagues. And Xhaka, at the base of Leverkusen’s midfield and the conductor of Alonso’s possession-based team, has arguably been the club’s most important player this season. “At Arsenal his position was a little bit different,” noted Alonso when discussing the Swiss international’s “fundamental” role in his team. “When they had the ball he was a little bit closer to the striker. Now he’s a little bit closer to the centre backs and helping to build the game.”

These older, experienced faces not only change the way Leverkusen play on the pitch but also impose a mentality off it too which has been sorely missing for some time. Inside the club, there was always a sense that the team were always capable of going on super runs of form, but would then implode when they faced the first bump on the road. Under Alonso, “Die Werkself” not only know how to win, but are also no longer afraid of losing. That reinforced belief was clearly on show when the side fought back from going behind twice in their 2-2 draw with Bayern on matchday four, as well as their recent 3-2 comeback against RB Leipzig after the winter break. And has been the main characteristic behind their surge to the top of the league table. 

Such success has naturally attracted a huge amount of interest from Alonso’s former clubs, where Liverpool, Bayern but most notably Real Madrid fans are growing more and more hopeful that the Spaniard will swap the BayArena for brighter lights elsewhere at the end of the season. However, it remains to be seen whether Alonso’s time at Leverkusen will be a short-term proof of concept for his tactics or morph into a long-term project for silverware and success. “It depends on if you want to be pushed to take other’s decisions, or if you want to make your own decisions,” noted the 41-year-old coach when asked about the interest in him this season. “And so far I’ve been clear, I will make my own decisions when I feel it is the right moment for whatever.” 

However, an indication of Alonso’s future may come from the comfort he clearly feels in the sleepy town of Leverkusen, just across the river Rhein from the sprawling metropolis of Cologne. Often referred to as “almost German” around the club from the manner in which he’s always five minutes early for appointments, works just as hard as any of his players in training and is always impeccably dressed, the head coach all but confirmed it when he was asked about the running joke. “I’m Basque, total Basque,” noted the Spaniard. “But with a big German influence now.”