Xabi Alonso: "The Bundesliga is a league of young coaches who are not afraid, like me"

“I want us to be dominant”, said Xabi Alonso, in his presentation as the new coach of Bayer Leverkusen, this morning.

It was a statement of intent.

The beginning of a speech that lived up to what this man who made an epoch as a midfielder at Liverpool, Madrid and Bayern, and who as a member of the Spanish team was part of the generation of most influential footballers of this century.

Sitting in the conference room of the Bay Arena, in the Rhenish club's headquarters, the 40-year-old Basque delivered his first words as First Division coach.

He will debut this Saturday in the Bundesliga against Schalke and on Tuesday he will host Porto in the Champions League.

They don't call you to ride a wave of optimism.

With five points from eight games, Leverkusen is penultimate in the German First Division.

It may be thought that the technician is facing the kind of task that has less to do with academics than with the struggle for survival.

A more or less desperate situation that the Germans define as

, one of the few words that Alonso did not know how to pronounce in the vernacular.

For everything else, his handling of the German was amazingly good.

Several of the local journalists gathered in the room expressed concern about the team's tight situation and asked Alonso if he hadn't been scared of the risk of tarnishing his reputation with failure when he decided to take charge of a team in crisis.

"If you're shy about taking risks, you don't get things," he replied.

“We want to have an impact, work and show that we can do better.

If we want to be up there we must first visualize it.

My commitment is that we will be in the first positions.

I don't know when, but we'll be there.

What is nothing sure?

Of course, nothing is certain in life and neither in football.

But if you don't try you'll never get there.

I love to work hard.

I like people around me to work hard.

I have the passion to do it.”

Sober but energetic, somewhat dry but friendly, resolved at all times, Alonso was rigorous and tender at the same time, with the inevitable dose of naivete in young coaches.

Therein lies part of his strength and he was aware of it.

“I will give the players my motivation, my hunger, my proximity… I come with fresh energy!” he said.

"I don't want to wait for Saturday," he warned;

“I want to start today.

Every day has to be the best day to get to the game in the best possible way.

That's the mindset."

"We don't want passive players," he continued, when asked what he intended to do with the team;

“I want activity, intensity with and without the ball.

Today the game has become more sophisticated.

The team must know what we want and recognize how we will be ourselves.

Dominant, intense, always with good control of the ball.

I was a coach and I want control to be dynamic, intense and look for the goal.

This way we will be very competitive as long as the concentration lasts 95 minutes.

You can't just be big for 80 minutes.

If you let yourself go in bad times, in today's football that can kill you”.

“First, the management of men”

They asked him what he had learned from coaches like Guardiola or Mourinho and he gave the impression of having learned the answer very well.

“The players need to follow you, believe in what you say.

And you must feed them.

You should know that you can help them with motivation and knowledge.

But first there is the management of men and then football knowledge.

Alonso, whose greatest experience has been managing Real Sociedad B for the past two seasons, explained that some La Liga clubs had shown an interest in hiring him, but that he was decidedly inclined to accept the German challenge.

"I like the professionalism, calmness and seriousness of German football," he said.

“The Bundesliga improves every year.

There are great coaches.

Youngsters who are not afraid and clubs who are not afraid to give opportunities to young coaches like me”.

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