Xabi Alonso: The Next Managerial Prodigy?
It’s been a while since my last in-depth tactical piece on here.
A lot has happened since then, including the impressive rise in stock of Xabi Alonso, not as a player, but as a manager.
Everyone can remember Alonso the player. He was the epitome of a deep-lying playmaker, orchestrating the game with his exceptional passing range and footballing intelligence.
His ability to dictate the tempo, seamlessly transitioning from defence to attack, was next level.
Alonso’s precision in long-range distribution and immaculate ball control made him a linchpin in midfield, a player capable of both breaking up opposition attacks and launching pinpoint long balls to unlock defences.
During his playing career, one of his former coaches, who is perhaps one of the most revered coaches in the world, José Mourinho, believed that Alonso could become a great manager from his playing days.
Mourinho came to this conclusion for a few reasons.
For one, Alonso has had success in three very difficult countries; England, Spain and Germany.
It’s not easy to transition from those three countries, with their unique aspects to their game and play at a high level, consistently.
Another was that his education as a player would’ve been excellent. Learning from the likes of Mourinho, Pep Guardiola at Bayern, Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid and Rafa Benítez at Liverpool would no doubt have been invaluable to Alonso’s growth as a footballer.
That, on top of the position that he played and the clubs he played for, his football knowledge grew every single year.
So to see him now years later with Bayer Leverkusen who are currently leading the Bundesliga, two points ahead of last year’s winners Bayern Munich, it’s no surprise Xabi Alonso is doing as well as he is right now.
However, his journey in management wasn’t always blue skies, where there were some bumps along the way.
A year after he retired from football, he returned to Real Madrid while completing his UEFA Elite coaching course, to look after their Under 14’s team.
The following year, he was appointed as Real Sociedad B’s new manager. At the time, they were in the third division of Spanish football.
In his second season at Sanse, he achieved promotion to the second division of Spanish football, the Segunda División.
During that time, he was beginning to be linked with clubs abroad, notably Borussia Mönchengladbach.
His third season however wasn’t so much of a success story, as they got relegated back to the third division and Alonso left the club not long after.
When he made the move to Bayer Leverkusen in early October last year, it’s important to contextualise how bad the situation was for Die Werkself.
At the time, Leverkusen found themselves in 17th in the Bundesliga and under their former Swiss manager, Gerardo Seoane, it was clear that there were a few tactical problems that were causing the side to lose and do so, quite badly.
For one, as highlighted by the analysts on the Bundesliga Youtube channel, their pressing structure had a number of flaws.
As shown by the graphic, Bayer Leverkusen were way too stretched, with no sense of compactness or structure within their defensive shape.
The distance between each player and more broadly each unit was too big, which resulted in huge gaps getting created for the opposition to exploit.
This lack of structure saw the opposition at times during the first few rounds average just over 13 shots at Leverkusen’s goal per game.
Naturally, this was going to lead to more goals conceded, as under Seaone they averaged about 2 goals conceded per game.
That in tandem with a very slow ball recovery time contributed to Leverkusen finding themselves in 17th as Xabi Alonso walked in the door.
There were two key areas that Alonso had to ensure he could fix in order to salvage something from the season; Leverkusen’s attacking play and defensive organisation.
One of the ways in which he went about rectifying their season was by implementing a 3–4–3 system.
Fortunately for Alonso, his predecessor, Seoane, often at times switched from his standard 4–4–2/4–2–3–1 to a 3–5–2 which allowed for an easier transition to a back three system once Alonso came in.
What this could do immediately was to give Bayer Leverkusen a more robust and organised structure behind the ball.
One difference between Seoane and Alonso was seen through ball recovery time. Under Alonso, initially the ball recovery time increased from 14.9 seconds to 16.7 seconds, however this was done for a key reason.
As I mentioned before, under Seoane, particularly in his final season, Leverkusen were way too stretched and their level of compactness was really poor.
Complete opposite under Alonso, as shown by the graphic above, where the distances horizontally and vertically between the players are much more condensed.
The increased ball recovery time was made to ensure that the gaps between the players wouldn’t increase and so that they could retain as much central compactness as possible.
Eventually, this led to Leverkusen’s average shots on target against to drop from roughly 13 shots to 10.
We could see elements of Mourinho’s idea of the game with Bayer Leverkusen as well, as the core of being defensively resolute and then blistering in the offensive transition moments was really apparent.
Having very quick players like Moussa Diaby and Mitchel Bakker, made those counterattacks especially, very difficult for opposition teams to defend against.
As the season went on, Alonso gradually changed the team’s behaviours when defending, particularly when pressing the opponent.
I believe Alonso felt it was critical to have a secure base structure in terms of his defensive organisation before he could even think about implementing a much higher press in the front third.
As 2023 came along, the ball recovery time changed from 16.7 seconds to 14.8, where there was a greater emphasis placed on proactive actions, where the players had to be more aggressive and intense when out of possession.
From there, their turnover game became much more prolific, especially if the opposition left space in behind for a deep run for the likes of Moussa Diaby to make, it would typically spell trouble for the other team.
What also helped Leverkusen’s season go to another dimension was the return of playmaker, Florian Wirtz.
He became a clear focal point for Alonso’s team as the season went on, as the player’s creativity and execution of difficult yet highly effective passes was such a huge asset to how Leverkusen would attack.
His ability to link the play from the midfield to the wider and quicker players made him critical to how Bayer would organise their attacks.
To give an idea of the impact of Wirtz’s threat and impact, prior to his return Bayer were averaging 9.6 shots per game. Once he came back into the side, that number jumped up to 13.6.
So looking to go a bit broadly with the detail, Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen typically engage in a positional game with their 3–4–3 system, as shown below.
The objective is to create space centrally for Leverkusen’s number 10s, where they can look to engage with the wingback who’s providing the width or turn and look to attack their opponent.
Again, as mentioned before, Bayer have very quick 10s/wingers, so while they’re adept at keeping possession, going direct isn’t a method Alonso resists utilising.
The 2022/23 season was by in large a very successful one, with Leverkusen’s offensive and defensive qualities improving as the season went on under Alonso.
Below, we can see just how clinical and efficient the team was with their finishing.
Leverkusen finished the season with the sixth-highest goal tally in the league with 57 goals scored.
With an average of 1.56 goals per 90 minutes, Leverkusen outperformed their own expected goals (xG) value of 53.86, showcasing their clinical finishing and effectiveness in front of goal.
Defensively, the formation change played a big help, as well as the adjustment of a few behavioural and tactical facets of their structure. Still, their structure could be better however Alonso managed to improve it quite significantly during the season.
This season, it is somewhat of a surprise to see Leverkusen on top of the Bundesliga and undefeated, however when you analyse how Leverkusen progressed under Alonso in the prior season, there was always the potential for further development.
So far, they’ve matched Bayern Munich for goals scored (23) and goals conceded (6) showing that as of this moment, their season is on the right track.
More specifically for Xabi Alonso, it’s clear that his stock will continue to rise if this current trend of performances is anything to go by.
It is no surprise that teams like Liverpool and Real Madrid are monitoring Alonso, as there’s no doubt when the likes of Jürgen Klopp and Carlo Ancelotti depart their respective clubs, the Spanish manager will be a top target.
