After Bayer Leverkusen were left second-from-bottom in the Bundesliga, with one win from eight matches, dumped out of the first round of the German Cup by newly promoted 3. Liga side SV Elversberg and a pair of disappointing losses in the Champions League, the club decided to go in a direction Bundesliga teams rarely do. That was to not only sack head coach Gerardo Seoane, but to go for a coach without senior club experience and not from a German-speaking country in Xabi Alonso.
Seoane’s issues came from instability within the structure of the team. He based his attacks on finding the quickest way to progress the ball to create scoring opportunities. However, if his team lost the ball while doing it, opponents would have a quick transition opportunity as Leverkusen weren’t structurally prepared in their counter-press and would end up dangerously exposed. This was also their problem last season, but their attack flourished to hide this weakness. This season, though, especially without the injured Florian Wirtz, they haven’t had the means to outscore their rivals like they once did.
Enter Alonso.
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What has Alonso changed so far?
Like Seoane, Alonso also uses a mix of 4-2-3-1 and 3-4-3 formations as his baseline, but the main difference is the structure of how his players are used. While the former head coach used his wingers to provide width and cut inside later during attacking sequences, Alonso uses his wingers almost exclusively in the half spaces. This is an attribute of his philosophy that is based on positional play (also known as “juego de posición“), a tactical concept that includes a set of strict rules defining the positioning of players and how to progress the ball. Users of this concept include Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta, just to name a few, although they have each developed their own different ways of implementing it.
Even with only one full week’s worth of preparation, you can clearly see this structure on the pitch from Alonso. Leverkusen’s positional play is following obvious guidelines of when and where to provide width. Usually, it’s Bayer’s wing-backs that occupy the wings, allowing Alonso’s wingers to stay inside and in between the lines of their opponents. Their centre-backs typically stay back, taking part in their build-up play by spreading out wider. One defensive midfielder keeps closer and better connected to the centre-backs, creating a 2-plus-1 or 3-plus-1 build-up structure.
