The 2024-25 Bundesliga season begins on Friday, so we’ve looked at four key questions as Bayer Leverkusen prepare to defend their title.
Can Bayer Leverkusen Win the Bundesliga Again?
You’re a liar if you said you saw it coming.
Bayer Leverkusen had never won the Bundesliga before and had a head coach in his first full season in charge of a senior side, yet they ended the stranglehold of Bayern Munich on the Bundesliga, while going undefeated in 2023-24 – the first Bundesliga team ever to do so – and also winning the DFB-Pokal and making it all the way to the UEFA Europa League final.
It was quite the campaign for Leverkusen, with Xabi Alonso ending their wait for a Bundesliga title, finally slaying the unwanted nickname of ‘Neverkusen’, and doing it in some style.
Leverkusen won 28 and drew six of their 34 league games last season, winning the title by a mighty 17 points ahead of surprise runners-up VfB Stuttgart.
The big question is, of course, can they do it again? Their remarkable numbers across an entire season suggest they’re more than a flash in the pan, but now it’s time for the difficult second album, and Leverkusen have a much bigger target on their back than they did a year ago.
Alonso stayed, which was vitally important, and he’s added to his squad.
Aleix García has been signed from Girona after his breakout season with La Liga’s own surprise package. The midfielder had nine goal involvements (three goals, six assists) and was keen to get the ball forward, attempting 396 passes into the attacking third in Spain’s top flight last season (82% success), the most in the division and the fourth-highest in Europe’s top five leagues among outfield players.
French winger Martin Terrier has also arrived from Rennes off the back of scoring seven and assisting three in Ligue 1 last season. Alonso will hope he can get the 27-year-old back to his 2021-22 levels, when he scored 21 league goals.
More crucially, though, the defending champions haven’t lost any of their key players, with Adam Hlozek the only notable exit to Hoffenheim, and the Czech striker only started five Bundesliga games last season.
Centre-back Jonathan Tah looks like he will be staying despite a summer of links to Bayern Munich, while the club will have been pleased that anticipated bids for Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong and Victor Boniface never seemed to materialise.
Having Boniface fit for more of the season should be a boost. The Nigerian striker missed a large chunk of his debut campaign in Germany due to injury but was still able to score 14 Bundesliga goals in 23 appearances (18 starts).
Not that it slowed Leverkusen down particularly, and the whole world will be watching to see if Alonso and his players can repeat the trick.
Will Harry Kane Finally Win a Trophy?
Harry Kane is famous for two things; scoring goals and having never won a trophy.
It started as a bit of gentle football banter, leading to people mostly joking when they suggested Kane moving to Bayern Munich last summer still wouldn’t end his trophy drought.
Then the Rekordmeister missed out on the Bundesliga title for the first time since 2012 and frankly the joke seems to have gone a bit too far now, especially considering how well Kane did himself.
The former Tottenham man scored an astonishing 36 goals in 32 Bundesliga games, as well as chipping in with eight assists. And yet, still no trophy.
We asked this last season, but we’re going to have to ask again; will Kane finally win something in 2024-25?
Bayern will be more determined than ever to win the league after being denied for the first time since Jürgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund beat them to the title in 2011-12, and with a relatively young head coach in Vincent Kompany now at the helm, are perhaps hoping to follow Leverkusen’s successful playbook.
Kompany’s achievements at Burnley, where he won the English Championship title in 2022-23 before being relegated from the Premier League last season, are not too dissimilar to Xabi Alonso’s work at Real Sociedad B before he went to the BayArena.
The Belgian had some new talent added to the ranks over the summer, including Michael Olise, João Palhinha and Hiroki Ito, though the Japanese defender signed from Stuttgart will spend some time sidelined after breaking his foot in pre-season.
Olise registered a goal or assist every 80 minutes in the Premier League last season, the joint-best ratio in the competition alongside Cole Palmer and Erling Haaland (min. 500+ minutes played). Meanwhile, Palhinha recorded 300 tackles across his two seasons in the Premier League, at least 109 more than any other player in that time.
Despite their shock third-place finish last season, Bayern still scored the most goals in the Bundesliga (94) and had the highest expected goals total (87.0 xG). Their problem was at the other end, where they conceded 45 goals from just 32.3 xG against. In fact, their xG against was just 2.2 more than champions Leverkusen, but they conceded 21 goals more than Alonso’s men.
Kane will score goals again, and lots of them, but whether his teammates can do enough to help him break one of the more unfathomable ducks in football remains to be seen.
Will the Chasing Pack Challenge?
If it wasn’t for the remarkable achievements of Bayer Leverkusen last season, VfB Stuttgart would have been the ones getting all the headlines. Sebastian Hoeneß did an astounding job in leading them to second place, ahead of Bayern Munich.
In fact, Stuttgart finished 14 places higher than they did in the previous season – a joint-record between consecutive Bundesliga seasons, previously only achieved by Werder Bremen in 1967-68 (also 16th followed by 2nd).
Unlike Leverkusen, Stuttgart struggled to keep their key players over the summer, losing Ito to Bayern, and both Waldemar Anton and Serhou Guirassy to Borussia Dortmund.
In terms of incomings, Deniz Undav has turned his successful loan move last season into a permanent deal from Brighton, while Ermedin Demirovic has come in from Augsburg as Guirassy’s replacement. The Bosnia and Herzegovina international recorded 24 goal involvements in the Bundesliga last season (15 goals, 9 assists); only four players had more, including Undav (27 – 18G, 9A) and Guirassy (30 – 28G, 2A).
That Dortmund took two of Stuttgart’s star players suggests they want to ensure they don’t finish below Die Roten again. They will be looking to improve with a new and inexperienced head coach in former BVB player Nuri Sahin, who has replaced Edin Terzic.
In addition to reaching the UEFA Champions League final last season, Terzic won 59% of his Bundesliga games as Dortmund manager, putting him in fourth place among all BVB coaches with at least 34 Bundesliga games, but this is Sahin’s first senior management role, so it will be interesting to see how the former Real Madrid midfielder does.
Guirassy is a solid replacement for Niclas Füllkrug, who departed for West Ham, while Pascal Groß has also arrived from Brighton & Hove Albion. Groß created 508 chances in his Premier League career, a tally only bettered by Kevin De Bruyne (602) since the Germany international debuted for Brighton in August 2017.
The big summer news for RB Leipzig is that, while Dani Olmo has left for Barcelona, they were able to fight off interest from Bayern Munich in Xavi Simons and secure the Netherlands star on another season-long loan. As well as eight goals and 11 assists, Xavi recorded 59 direct shots on goal in the Bundesliga last season following a carry of at least five metres (27 shots, 32 assists) – at least 10 more than any other player.
Loïs Openda will be looking to build on a solid debut season, where he scored 24 Bundesliga goals and provided eight assists, while Marco Rose’s side have also been strengthened with the addition of Norwegian winger Antonio Nusa. The 19-year-old attempted eight dribbles per 90 minutes in the Belgian Jupiler Pro League last season, the highest figure among players with at least 1,000 minutes played.
On paper, each of these teams are primed to make it a fascinating title race this season, but on paper, Leverkusen and Stuttgart shouldn’t have been anywhere near it last term, so who knows?
Who Are the New Faces?
Football hipsters assemble; FC St. Pauli are back in the Bundesliga.
After 13 years away from Germany’s top flight, the Hamburg-based club famous for their left-wing values (the political stance, not the football formation position) are back in the big time after winning the 2. Bundesliga title last season.
However, they will take on the likes of Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund without the head coach who got them there, with Fabian Hürzeler leaving for Brighton over the summer. He has been replaced by Alexander Blessin from Belgian side Union Saint-Gilloise, who won the Belgian Cup and finished top of the Jupiler Pro League in the regular season, though lost out to Club Brugge in the play-offs.
They have also lost a key player in Marcel Hartel, who has joined Major League Soccer side St. Louis City. The 28-year-old topped the 2. Bundesliga rankings for assists last season (12), and was also the league’s fourth top scorer with 17 goals. Hartel was the only one of Hürzeler’s players to reach double figures for either.
Captain Jackson Irvine remains, though, hoping to lead Die Kiezkicker to safety this season, and the former Celtic midfielder recently told the Bundesliga website: “I’ve spent most of my career playing in second leagues in the Championship in England and in 2. Bundesliga, and I’ve just been craving that opportunity to have that year where you can then test yourself with the next level, and now this season is the reward for that and you have to go and prove it. Prove that you are capable of competing at that next level.”
Also aiming to prove themselves at this level will be Holstein Kiel, appearing in the Bundesliga for the first time ever, the 58th team to play in the competition since the league launched in 1963.
Head coach Marcel Rapp is still in place, and will take charge of a side who like to press from the front. Only St. Pauli won possession in the opposition’s final third more than Holstein Kiel’s 160 times in 2. Bundesliga, and they also had the second-best defensive record behind the champions.
They conceded just 39 times from an xG against of 47.8, largely due to goalkeeper Timon Weiner. The 25-year-old played 30 league games last season and outperformed his expected goals on target conceded by 8.2 goals, conceding just 33 times from 41.2 xG on target conceded, the biggest overperformance for a goalkeeper in the division.
Holstein Kiel spread the goals out, with only three teams in the second tier scoring more than their 65 last season, but striker Steven Skrzybski was their top scorer with just 10 goals; 15 players from other teams scored more.
Another five goals came from former Tottenham and Schalke midfielder Lewis Holtby, and the 33-year-old’s experience in top-flight football could be crucial if Holstein Kiel are to make it more than one campaign in the Bundesliga.
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