Executives at Bayer Leverkusen, a historic but often middleweight German soccer team, have been processing the information since at least February. Some were delivered personally, a silent blessing after another victory. Others came via WhatsApp, with unsolicited and unexpected messages from colleagues and acquaintances, and even, to their occasional surprise, traditional enemies.
After all, football is an intensely tribal sport. Competitors don’t encourage or congratulate each other easily. But as the German league season gathers pace, many want to praise what Leverkusen is about to achieve: with every win, it gets closer to being crowned national champions for the first time.
And, that means – just as importantly – Bayern Munich is not.
Bayer Leverkusen will cross the finish line this weekend, ending Bayern’s run of consecutive titles more than a decade ago. At least that’s how it should be: All Leverkusen needs to seal the title is a win, which could come on Sunday against Werder Bremen or Bayern lose.
In one sense, the victory has been a long time coming; the club was founded 120 years ago, in 1904, before the city of Leverkusen technically existed. But in another sense, it’s coming sooner than anyone expected.
Six months ago, the team’s charismatic coach, 42-year-old Xabi Alonso, said he would only back the idea that his side could win the title if they were still in contention in April. In fact, it could be a title too early to celebrate properly: the season is still in full swing and Leverkusen have at least two other trophies to chase.
Whenever a championship comes, the club hosts a low-key post-match party for players and their families at its stadium, Bay Arena. But the traditional parade – where fans will have the chance to pay tribute to the players – won’t take place until May 26, the day after the DFB-Pokal, the country’s other major domestic tournament. (Leverkusen is also expected to win this one.)
Organizing the celebration was a challenge: Leverkusen is a small city sandwiched between Cologne and Dusseldorf, and there is no municipal building with a ceremonial balcony large enough for the team to greet fans Salute. (The club said it considered a number of options but has not made any decisions yet.)
“We will decorate our city in black and red wherever possible,” the city’s mayor, Uwe Richrath, said in a statement.
This is not an issue that the club or the city have had to face before. Bayer Leverkusen was founded more than a century ago as a sports venue for workers at the nearby Bayer chemical plant, but has only won two major honors in its long history. The last time was in 1993.
On the contrary, Leverkusen has become almost synonymous with painful defeat. In 2002, the club earned the English nickname “Neverkusen” after missing out on the league title, German Cup title and Champions League title, Europe’s top football competition, at the final hurdle. This reputation is so woven into the club’s soul that Leverkusen has patented its German equivalent, the Vizekusen.
Alonso’s team will be exorcising these ghosts in quite spectacular fashion over the next few weeks. His team has yet to lose a game this season and can still finish the season with more major honors (three) than in the entire history.
The significance of this achievement will extend far beyond his hometown.
The dominance of Bayern Munich, Germany’s largest and richest club, has attracted significant attention in recent years – For German fans and the league itself – The annual Bundesliga title race is starting to look dull and predictable.
As evidenced by the flood of news pouring into Leverkusen, German football is taking no small amount of comfort at the prospect of a coaching change, even if it’s only temporary.
“I can definitely say it’s a good thing for the Bundesliga,” said Peer Naubert, chief marketing officer of Bundesliga International, the organization responsible for promoting German football abroad. “Having the same championship 11 years in a row doesn’t have a negative impact, but it doesn’t have a positive impact either.”
Leverkusen’s success allows the Bundesliga to tell a different story to an international audience. At least part of this can be attributed to Alonso himself: It’s striking, for example, how much of Leverkusen’s social media work features its coach, one of the three most popular players in the world A much-loved former player for clubs Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
But Mr Norbert said the alliance as a whole was also seeing concrete benefits. “In terms of awareness, interest and the number of enthusiastic fans,” he said, citing a metric used by the Bundesliga to describe viewers who watch regular television, “we are seeing significant growth.”
He said there were far more people watching Leverkusen games than in the past, but there were also more people watching other teams’ games. The league’s social media presence has grown accordingly. “I think there’s some freshness,” Mr. Norbert said.
Fans’ reaction was subtle. It would be a bit of an exaggeration to say that Germany are excited about the prospect of Leverkusen winning the title. Fans are too loyal to their clubs and German football is too regional, so. The club also lacks the broad diaspora enjoyed by rivals such as Bayern or Borussia Dortmund, and therefore does not intrude on the national consciousness as much as other clubs.
Leverkusen’s status in German football is also somewhat precarious. A division of corporate giant Bayer, it is one of the few exceptions to the much-admired German model: the so-called 50+1 rule, in which fans must be the majority owners of their clubs. This is a long-standing exception, but it’s an exception nonetheless.
Dario Minden, spokesman for Unsere Kurve, the organization representing organized football fans in Germany, said the status meant Leverkusen was “a kind of original sin”. In his view, it’s corporate support that has allowed the club to withstand the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic better than other teams.
“It’s important to see that the only way to break Bayern’s dominance is to build a big pharmaceutical company,” Mr Minden said.
But he said Leverkusen’s outstanding performance would not alleviate the financial imbalance that has allowed Bayern to win the title every year since 2012.
Even if Leverkusen is confident it can build on its success – Alonso has turned down offers from Liverpool and Bayern to stay on as head coach next year and the team hopes to retain its star player Florian Wirtz – — but that doesn’t prove there will be a new head coach. , bringing the dawn of greater fairness to opponents across the league.
As an Frankfurt fan, Mr Minden admits he is not happy with any team other than his own winning the title. “Although maybe that’s because I’m a bad person,” he said.
Still, one aspect of the championship brought him some solace. “We have this great word,” he said. “gloat.”
Like much of Germany, Mr Minden will probably not be enthusiastic about celebrating Leverkusen’s impending victory. He can be a little happy, though, because it means Bayern Munich will once again experience what it means to finish second after 11 long years.
