Leverkusen just finished the first unbeaten season in Bundesliga history. They are also in the finals of the DFB-Pokal and the Europa League. If they win those two, then I believe it’ll be the first time in the post-WWII era that a team from one of the top five European leagues has gone undefeated in all competitions. And I think that holds true even if you expand out the leagues we consider to some almost-top leagues like the Portuguese and Dutch leagues. While Leverkusen did have the first unbeaten Bundesliga season, I will note note that it’s not the highest Bundesliga point total ever, since they got 90 points and the 2012-2013 Bayern Munich team got 91 points. And Leverkusen’s goal differential (+65) is impressive but has been exceeded by Bayern Munich a few times in recent years. So it’s arguably the best Bundesliga season ever, but it’s definitely not clear cut in that regard. One caveat I’d note is that, in a sense, it’s more impressive for a non-Bayern-Munich team to put up this kind of point total, since Bayern Munich teams doesn’t have to face itself twice a year, while Leverkusen did have to actually face Bayern. Anyways, obviously they were not in the Champions League, and the Europa League is substantially weaker. So if they win the Europa League, it won’t really tell us much more about their strength than their fantastic league season has. And it’s harder to compare against teams that won the Champions League, when Leverkusen hasn’t had an opportunity to try to win that competition this year. Obviously past teams that won the league + CL will have had greater achievements, but it not entirely clear that such teams must actually have been better. I will also note that the Champions League itself certainly hasn’t indicated that the Bundesliga is weak this year or that Leverkusen wouldn’t have excelled there. Dortmund finished 5th in the Bundesliga but is in the Champions League Finals! Meanwhile, Bayern Munich actually finished 3rd in the Bundesliga, but was a couple very-late Real Madrid goals from making the Champions League Finals as well. So we have Leverkusen dominating a league where two of the top three Champions League teams finished 3rd and 5th (with 17 and 27 fewer points than Leverkusen). To me, it really feels like Leverkusen may actually be a historically good team this year. I think it’s a shame that they didn’t do better last season, so that we could’ve seen them in the Champions League. What do people think? How good are they?
Happily Xabi is staying on Leverkusen next season so we will see his team on UCL as a massive favorite. And he will make even more signings in areas where his team is weak (although maybe some players like Wirtz, Grimaldo, Frimpong, Palacios, Xhaka and Hradecky can leave on the end of season cause they played on a very high level this season so there are interest from many bigger clubs to sign them, especially with the most teenager players). I don't think they'll remain unbeaten next season but I still think they'll be title contenders both on Bundesliga and Champions League. I just hope the same thing doesn't happen to Napoli this season after a fantastic season last year
During their quest to remain unbeaten, Leverkusen came close on several occasions to losing that status. On 8 occasions they scored the equalizing goal VERY late in matches. And in the same time frame of matches they scored the winning goal on 6 occasions. BL4 - 2:2 (A) Bayern Munich... equalizing goal @ 90+4' (penalty) BL17 - 1:0 (A) Augsburg... winning goal @ 90+4' BL18 - 3:2 (A) RB Leipzig... winning goal @ 90+1' BL27 - 2:1 (H) Hoffenheim... equalizing goal @ 88'... winning goal @ 90+1' BL30 - 1:1 (A) Dortmund... equalizing goal @ 90+7' BL31 - 2:2 (H) Stuttgart... equalizing goal @ 90+6' DFB-Qf - 3:2 (H) Stuttgart... winning goal @ 90' UEL-GS4 - 1:0 (A) Qarabağ... winning goal @ 90+4' (penalty) UEL-2R1L - 2:2 (A) Qarabağ... equalizing goal @ 90+2' UEL-2R2L - 3:2 (H) Qarabağ... equalizing goal @ 90+3'... winning goal @ 90+8' UEL-Qf2 - 1:1 (A) West Ham... equalizing goal @ 89' UEL-Sf2 - 2:2 (H) Roma... equalizing goal @ 90+7'
The first half of the season were far more impressive. I remember many people commenting that they "lost gas" and it looked like they were going to lose at some point of the second half of the season. Then came that mystique of what they say about Real Madrid, black magic and winning matches in extra time lol
They could achieve an absolutely stunning record of being the first team since WWII to finish the European season unbeaten, as you pointed out. Every now and then a coach comes along who does something remarkable and even his coaching style is copied by other coaches. Like Mourinho at Porto/Chelsea (Tactical Periodisation training) and Guardiola at Barcelona. Maybe Xabi Alonso won't reach that level, but he could become like Conte at Juventus, who were undefeated Italian champions in a weaker league, but who revived the 352 in Europe. Bayer's style of play will certainly be studied a lot. Or maybe Bayer are the product of a brilliant generation of players who are slipping under the radar. We'll see in the future
Bayern and Dortmund had both a sub-par season. This helped them for their unbeaten status. Let's see if they can sustain it for multiple seasons like say early 90s Milan, mid 90s Ajax (in Europe), Barcelona etc. It is also not like their Xg was enormously good or they monopolise all the top positions in Sofascore and WhoScored (their supposed best player, Wirtz, is pipped by other Bundesliga players playing in the same position). https://understat.com/team/Bayer_Leverkusen/2023 https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/8...PlayerStatistics/Germany-Bundesliga-2023-2024 https://www.sofascore.com/nl/toernooi/voetbal/germany/bundesliga/35#id:52608,tab:top_players So it's hard to say...
Don’t you think we won’t really be able to see if they can sustain it for multiple seasons, because they don’t have enough money to keep their players for long? Hopefully I’m wrong about that, but I’m assuming a lot of their talent will pretty quickly get taken by bigger clubs.
Okay, but fact remains both Bayern and Dortmund were pretty weak in the league. Below their usual standards of the past 15 years. Dortmund should have been eliminated by PSV on a normal day. That says enough. So in itself the unbeaten status has some caveats.
Were Bayern and Dortmund weak or was the Bundesliga just pretty deep with good teams? Or perhaps it’s a combination of the two. This year, you have Leverkusen, Bayern, Dortmund, Leipzig, and Stuttgart all being genuinely good teams IMO, which makes it harder to rack up huge point totals and an unbeaten season compared to a lot of years where the Bundesliga is just a one- or two-horse race. I think this year’s Bayern would’ve had a higher point total in many other seasons, where they didn’t have as many matches against good teams (and this year’s Bayern certainly would’ve won most recent Bundesliga seasons IMO—even just their 72-point total this year would’ve won the Bundesliga in most recent years). In theory, having several teams at the top that all put up a lot of points could either indicate: (1) there are lots of good teams at the top, which makes it a lot harder to go unbeaten; or (2) the middle-table and lower-table teams are bad, allowing mediocre top teams to still get a lot of points. I’d say that Dortmund and Bayern doing well in the Champions League makes me think that #1 is far more likely to be right than #2. And I’m not sure I understand how we should take a different conclusion just because Dortmund didn’t super easily beat PSV. They *did* beat PSV (by multiple goals actually) and then they proceeded to beat Atletico Madrid and PSG, without the need for extra time or penalties in any round. And that was after finishing on top of the most difficult group. They didn’t exactly merely squeak through to the finals. One final thing I’d note is that you can argue Bayern was not at its very best this year, but Bayern itself never faces Bayern. Real Madrid never faces Real Madrid. Barcelona never faces Barcelona. In their best years, these very big clubs inherently have an easier schedule than a team like Leverkusen, because Leverkusen has to face more matches against very big clubs than a very big club does (since, again, the very big club doesn’t face itself). So, even if Bayern wasn’t at its very best, having to face a not-at-its-historic-best Bayern Munich is still harder than not facing Bayern Munich at all! In other words, I think a strength-of-schedule kind of argument only makes Leverkusen’s season seem more impressive.
Yeah, this is good information! More generally, Leverkusen has scored a staggering 17 goals in the 90th minute or stoppage time. That’s in 51 matches. So they average scoring a 90th-minute or stoppage-time goal once every three matches! That’s staggering. In a sense, there’s surely luck involved there in getting late goals to keep the unbeaten streak going. But when the team is scoring that much near the end of matches, I’m not sure it’s really all luck (not that you’re saying it is). Some teams just perform great at the ends of games. I think most of this comes down to such teams being really well conditioned, such that the other team is tired at the ends of games and they aren’t, and they can systematically exploit that. This is compounded if the team also has good substitutes. But I also think there’s an aspect of confidence and playing to the moment that some teams have more than others. And it’s a confidence that I think can compound on itself—once a team has done it before, they have more confidence in doing it again, and that confidence is self-fulfilling (I think this is part of Real Madrid’s CL magic too, for instance).
Lol, well that didn’t age super well, and the Europa League final result should definitely affect our view of the team.
The problem isn't losing. The problem is losing being outplayed. Tbf this Atalanta side also outplayed Liverpool winning 3-0 (although it didn't even seem like Liverpool were really trying) and also Sporting from Gyokeres. This Atalanta side reminds me a little of Milan and Liverpool from the 2000s, in the sense of being very strong on a continental level but not so much on a domestic level. Although of course the level of talent in the teams doesn't even come close (suffering a hat trick from a player I didn't even know the name of until today in a Europa League final is shameful). Anyway, this kind of random thing happens mainly in knock out format and especially in a single game final.
They are obviously overrated when people talk about them so much as if they were something historical. At the level of Klopp's Dortmund or even Tuchel's Dortmund.
I disagree with the latter statement, but I agree that they’re a bit overrated. Klopp’s Dortmund was a lot more impressive in European competition.
Actually I dont have a framework to think about it so cant really compare, But it is baffling to me how many people dont understand the concept of form and are easily swayed back and forth by recency bias and vanity metrics. What Bayer has done this season is nothing uncommon in terms of performance. The black and white thinking of being "unbeaten" as something remarkable, but having few loses with the same level of performance as something not even close, is silly. If they had a single (or few) odd loss in October, they wouldnt get nearly as much attention as they got prior to the final and we wouldnt have this conversation. All beacuse of few lucky instances, out of their control, that went their way this season.
I think the comparison with Conte's Juventus is more apt, since that Juventus were also unbeaten at domestic level (unlike Klopp or Tuchel's Dortmund).