In a letter entitled “To Leverkusen” he wrote for The Players’ Tribune, Xabi Alonso showed his emotional and personal side to the entire football world. The fans have always wondered what goes through the head of a football manager, especially a successful one like Alonso. Now, the Spaniard has given insight into that as well as his thoughts, feelings, doubts and emotions. Firstly, he looked back on his childhood when football practically got under his skin, primarily thanks to his father Periko, a former Spanish national team player who played for Barcelona and was both a player and later a manager of Real Sociedad.”I can vividly remember gathering around the dinner table at night when I was young. My father would always have his notebooks and pencils scattered on the table, and he would be scribbling his tactics and lineups while my mom cooked dinner. To be honest, I remember my father more as a manager than as a player. His job was to always worry about the next match, or the next training, and this was in the days before the internet and laptops and advanced statistics, so he would map out all his ideas with his pencil while my mom tried to put out the plates and the forks,” he recalled.You can’t beat them? No worries, just sign one of their best playersSpeaking of his early days, Xabi specifically pointed out one childhood friend. Believe it or not, it was no other than current Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta!”I was lucky to have a friend in our neighbourhood who was also crazy about football. His name was Mikel. Every day, we were taking our skateboards down to the beach to play tennis, to surf, and of course to play football. This kid, he was maybe even crazier than me about football. He was a little bit younger than me and my friends — just a few months maybe. But you know how you always push your “little friends” at that age? Well, we tried, but he was a competitive monster. He wanted to win so badly, even if it was just a game on the beach. It was a love for the game that you cannot teach. You are born with it, I think. It bonded us very closely. And it still does, to this day. A few months ago, I got a call from my old friend Mikel. And as always, we talked football. He said, “We’ve got Bayern Munich in the Champions League this week, what do you think? And I said, “We’ve got West Ham, what do you think?” If you would have told us back then that we would be managing Arsenal and Leverkusen in 30 years, I think we would have been very happy, and very shocked,” Alonso admitted.Xabi Alonso: “A few months ago, I got a call from my old friend Mikel [Arteta]. And as always, we talked football. He said, ‘We’ve got Bayern Munich in the Champions League this week, what do you think?’ And I said, ‘We’ve got West Ham, what do you think?'”[@PlayersTribune] https://t.co/CUQP9I94Cl pic.twitter.com/FPqC3HZR4o— WerkselfXtra (@bayer04Xtra) June 13, 2024 Then, the 42-year-old reflected on his arrival at Leverkusen, admitting that he knew little about the club.”To be completely honest, when I got the phone call a year-and-a-half ago from Simon Rolfes asking me if I was interested in coming here, I had no idea about this word, “Neverkusen.” I was naive, in a good way. I had never been a manager in the top division. I had been coaching young players at Real Sociedad’s second team, in my hometown, completely out of the spotlight. All I knew of Bayer Leverkusen was from my time as a player, and I knew that they had a great stadium and were always playing in Europe. Then of course, I had a look at the squad, and I said, “Wow. OK. There is something interesting here,” he claimed.##NAJAVA_MECA_8159389##Once the spell with Bayer started, it didn’t begin well. Although Xabi was sure of his knowledge, methods and ideas, the initial bad results still shook his confidence, and a little worm of doubt started wiggling in his mind.”I think there is a moment when every young football manager stands on the sidelines completely helpless and looks around the stadium and asks themselves the question, “What am I doing? How did I get here?” For me, that moment was my third game in charge here, when Frankfurt smashed us 5–1. Remember that? Feels like a long time ago now. We were third from bottom, and I don’t think anyone watching that match would have predicted a trophy for us any time soon. We had lost the previous game 3–0 at home to Porto, and the team was really struggling to come together. But I believed that there was a lot of talent. So before the Frankfurt game, I honestly thought, “Hey, we can only improve.” As always, I worked hard to come up with a good gameplan. But once the match started, all my “ideas” went into the trash. All of my research and my notebooks filled with tactics, all the hours of video I watched… The score never lies. 5–1. Humbling. I am sure after that result at Frankfurt, there were many people who were thinking, “Why have we hired this guy from Real Sociedad B?” I don’t blame them. Lucky for me, we had an amazing group of players and staff who stuck together and believed in me and in our vision. But if I am honest, that day, when I walked back to the tunnel, I had the thought that every young manager has: “What am I doing? How did I get into this crazy profession?” Alonso admitted honestly.Is Real Madrid up for the highest transfer in its history?!Former Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid player then highlighted the key moment of the unbelievable season, when he started dreaming and believing that his team was able to play at a high level and win a trophy.”Over the first few months, I could see everyone coming together and trusting one another. But for me, the goal that made me really start dreaming a bit was Jonas Hofmann’s against Köln. Because it was not Jonas’s goal, it was a total team move. They were pressing us hard. Tah passed it out from the back to Palacios, who got it wide to Kossounou. Then we shifted the ball back to the middle to Xhaka, who accelerated the game with Wirtz and Boniface in between the lines. We were building bit-by-bit, attracting their press. And once we reached the space behind their sixes, we accelerated the game and attacked with many players in the box. Boniface played the ball out wide, and after a cross from Grimaldo, the back-heel pass from Wirtz gave Jonas the space to score. It was a perfect summary of our ambition for how we want to play. We had a good change of tempo between the “stability moment” and the “acceleration moment” and then a ruthless finish. As a manager, it gives you as much pleasure to see this kind of team goal develop as when you were playing the game yourself,” said the Spaniard.Leverkusen replaces the captain with 15 million euros worth of youngsterFinally, even though every football coach, player or fan will tell you that there is no recipe for winning trophies, Xabi still shared his thoughts on the matter.”When you win a trophy, I think that it always starts the season before. For us, it all goes back to the ’22–23 season. By the time we fought back for the draw against Atlético Madrid in the second leg in the Europa League, I could just sense that we had a special group. There was a look in the players’ eyes — belief. If you have ever been a coach, then you know that you can look your players in the eyes in the first two or three minutes of a match, and you just know if it’s going to be a good day or a challenging day. The belief is either there, or it’s not. We had a belief, even in defeat. At the end of that season, I asked many of our players who had offers from other clubs to stay. I said, “Please just trust me. If you come back, we will have a great season.” Some needed more convincing than others, because it was a risk, let’s be honest. But in the end, they all trusted me, and you can see the results,” concluded Alonso.
