Leverkusen and Stuttgart cap Bundesliga’s year of the underdog | Andy Brassell
Stuttgart share Leverkusen’s growth of having finished this campaign with a barely believable 40 points more than last
From start to finish the afternoon that confirmed Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen as unbeaten Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen was what has come to be typical of them. The voracious feasting on opponents’ mistakes, as Amine Adli did to provide Victor Boniface with the opener. The evidence that Xabi Alonso has drawn things from these players they never dared believe were there, when midfield destroyer Robert Andrich tucked in an artful rabona. The false tension, when Augbsurg teenager Mert Kömür scored a goal worthy of the style of Alonso’s team to bring the deficit back to just one, but we knew Leverkusen were never going to blow it.
Yet the moment that really captured Die Werkself’s imperious manner wasn’t a moment on the field. It came after, in the celebrations, when captain Lukas Hradecky ascended to the capo’s podium at the front of the Kurve, taking the Meisterschale with him. The Finland goalkeeper handed the trophy over to fans at the front of the throng, so they too could raise the Bundesliga among their peers. It was a beautiful gesture and a very trusting one. Hradecky didn’t guide it around and had no worries that it would come back in one piece. That trademark Alonso calm that has given them clarity in crucial moments was even endemic at party time.
