Granit Xhaka wins the first league title of his career while Bayer Leverkusen win their first Bundesliga in 120 years.
You made the right choice leaving Arsenal.
So proud of you, Granit. ❤️👏🏼
Bayer Leverkusen win first Bundesliga title, ending Bayern Munich’s reign
With five games left, Leverkusen defeated Werder Bremen 5-0 to win the football Bundesliga, snapping Bayern’s 11-game winning streak.
Granit Xhaka of Bayer Leverkusen celebrates after scoring [Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach]Posted on April 14, 202414 April 2024
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With a 5-0 victory over Werder Bremen, undefeated Bayer Leverkusen ended Bayern Munich’s 11-year reign on the league and won their first Bundesliga title.
With five games left, Xabi Alonso’s squad, who have gone a league-record 29 games without losing this season to win their first trophy since 1993, leads Bayern by 16 points.
With a 2-0 first-leg advantage over West Ham United in the Europa League quarterfinals and a spot in the German Cup final, they may win even more titles this season.
Florian Wirtz scored a hat trick in a victory that extended Leverkusen’s unbeaten streak in all competitions to an incredible 43 games this season. The team left nothing to chance and won the title at the first possible moment.
International player for Germany Wirtz said, “I cannot describe this.” “I still find it hard to believe this has happened to me. It will take me a few minutes in the dressing room to realize what we have accomplished.
“Considering how the previous season played out, we could not have imagined something like this.”
When Leverkusen was in the relegation zone in October 2022, Xabi Alonso became coach. He thought back on ending Bayern’s hegemony.
Alonso, who won three Bundesliga crowns with Bayern as a player from 2015 to 17, said, “Perhaps it’s healthy for the Bundesliga, also for German football, for another team to win.”
Enjoying this immense joy is something we must do. It will take some time for us to fully realize our accomplishments. In reference to the other titles that his team is still in contention to win this season, Alonso stated, “But it’s a great moment and yeah, we’ll see what happens next.”
However, this is the moment to rejoice.
After starting a Bundesliga match for the first time since December due to an injury, Victor Boniface calmed Leverkusen’s fears with the first goal from the penalty spot. With 30 minutes remaining, Granit Xhaka added an outrageous long-range strike to make it 2-0.
After that, Wirtz, a substitute, scored a goal that looked a lot like Xhaka’s, then another on the counter in the 83rd minute, and finally a third goal to seal the victory and record his first career hat trick. Bremen collapsed.
When Leverkusen scored its fourth goal with seven minutes remaining, the crowd had already poured onto the pitch. The players on the Leverkusen bench celebrated, danced, and gave each other embraces as the game’s closing minutes were played in a cloud of dense red smoke created by the fans’ pyrotechnics.
Hundreds more fans entered the field after the fifth goal in the ninetieth minute, and the referee called a chaotic but joyful finale to the match. Thousands of fans flocked to the field, brandishing cardboard replicas of the Bundesliga trophy along with flags and flares.
Five league second-place finishes and one Champions League appearance later, Leverkusen had finally shaken off its status as a chronic runner-up.
The title focuses attention squarely on a just under 170,000-person industrial city that has been overtaken by more well-known, larger neighbors.
The club anthem performed right before kickoff has the third line, “Not in Cologne and Dusseldorf, no, we’re at home here.”
The club is a unique outlier in Germany, where the majority of clubs are majority owned by members under the so-called 50+1 rule. The club began as a workers’ squad for the massive pharmaceutical company Bayer 120 years ago.