Bayer Leverkusen's rise from perennial failures to potentially becoming European immortals

The German club, 51 games unbeaten, will take on Atalanta in the Europa League final on Wednesday, looking to remain unbeaten on the season

You will doubtless have heard the tale of Bayer Leverkusen by now, the all-conquering kings of German football who may be as little as 180 minutes away from immortality. Beat Atalanta in the Europa League final and second-tier Kaiserslautern in the DFB Pokal and they will have played out Europe's first unbeaten top-flight season in the age of UEFA competition. Not bad for a club previously defined by the glorious failures of 2000-02. 

You may have an idea of where Leverkusen are heading. You may not be so familiar with how they got there. To truly understand Xabi Alonso's Invincibles you have to understand the team that the Spaniard inherited in the autumn of 2022, moored in the Bundesliga relegation zone. The issue was not so much the quality of the players as much as the sense of sloppiness to them. That was particularly pronounced in the Leverkusen defense, where they were late to second balls, continually chasing back to recover, any semblance of shape swiftly vanishing in the vertical headrush of the German game.

"Initially we really had to focus on stabilizing ourselves defensively," said Florian Wirtz, the jewel in Leverkusen's crown, of the weeks after Alonso's appointment. "We had to improve that part of the game. So the whole team was focused on defensive work. First and foremost, defend our goal, don't give up goals. That was really the foundation Xabi wanted to build."