When Bayer Leverkusen won their first Bundesliga title in 120 years of existence while going unbeaten two years ago, head coach Xabi Alonso wanted to thank the assistants and analysts who helped him create German football history.
So he contacted Koch & Bergfeld, and commissioned the Bremen silversmiths to create a collection of Meisterschale (the German league’s trophy) replicas as a surprise for those in his inner circle.
After a personal cost of around £60,000, Alonso did not then arrange a show or speech for the big handover. Rather, the replicas were resting on desks when staff arrived at Leverkusen’s training ground on an otherwise normal midweek morning in December 2024.
Marcel Daum, Alonso’s chief analyst at Leverkusen, was one of the recipients. ‘This shows how he is,’ Daum tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘He is so humble. Always a gentleman. He knows that in modern football, you cannot achieve something alone. With this, he tried to give something back.
‘For me, it’s crystal clear that he will be successful at Chelsea. It will be complicated for the other opponents to know in games what he will change, adjust, do. Very complicated.
‘At the same time, for Chelsea, it will become a big, big, big strength. I was sitting next to him on the bench. Of course, we were having conversations and everything, but you knew every five or so minutes, he was checking, adjusting, adapting. The in-game coaching is absolutely excellent. He is the prototype of the modern tactical coach. An expert in reading the game.
Xabi Alonso celebrates with the ‘Meisterschale’ after leading Bayer Leverkusen to the Bundesliga title unbeaten in 2024
Alonso also lifted the German Cup as Leverkusen completed a stunning undefeated domestic campaign
‘We can speak about knowledge. We can speak about character. But if you do not work hard, you have no chance today. He is a hard-working guy, 100,000 per cent, and the guys around him, like Sebas (Parrilla, assistant), Alberto (Encinas, assistant) and Ismael (Camenforte, fitness coach), they are experts who worked together so good here in Leverkusen.
‘I am sure they will be successful – whatever “successful” means for Chelsea.’
In Alonso’s first season, success is bound to be measured by whether Chelsea return to Champions League football after falling out of Europe entirely last year. Within the span of Spaniard’s four-year contract, the Blues want to be competing for the Premier League title again, and Daum considers that entirely possible.
‘I’m pretty sure this can happen,’ Daum adds. ‘The fundament is there. What happens at the end, it’s football, we never know, but everyone can be sure that these guys will work hard.’
Daum spent seven years as chief analyst at Eintracht Frankfurt before taking up the same position with Leverkusen in 2018, four years before Alonso joined. It was in 2023-24 when, using a 3-4-2-1 system, they did the Double together. They won the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal, and reached the final of the Europa League, which they lost to Serie A side Atalanta. Daum is still at Leverkusen today, a club he has adored since a boy, with his late father, Christoph, a much-loved former manager.
Alonso left for Real Madrid in 2025, and several sources consulted for this piece were aligned in saying he was not given enough time to succeed there, spending only seven months in charge as the big egos of the Bernabeu conspired against him.
Chelsea hope Madrid’s loss will be their gain. Officially, he begins work on July 1, but unofficially, the Alonso era has already begun. In between watching back their games from last season, the 44-year-old has visited their Cobham training base alongside his assistants, spoken with players, met with staff, and liaised with the sporting directorship team on their ins and outs for this summer, including the £51.8million sale of Marc Cucurella to Real.
Alonso intends to use pre-season to take a closer look at players, but we are told one attacker who will be staying is Geovany Quenda, the versatile 19-year-old arriving from Sporting CP on a deal worth up to £44m that was agreed last summer.
Alonso only lasted seven months at Real Madrid and several sources consulted for this piece were aligned in saying he was not given enough time to get his message across
Portugal Under 21s star Geovany Quenda will join Chelsea this summer in a £44m deal agreed a year ago with Sporting Lisbon
Sources close to Quenda have explained exactly how he has approached what his camp have been calling ‘The Road to London’. Quenda familiarised himself with Cobham while injured last season, following a training and nutrition programme designed in every detail by Chelsea after having surgery in London before Christmas, to repair the fractured fifth metatarsal in his right foot.
One source at Sporting says he returned to them ‘noticeably stronger and more powerful’ and having ‘added muscle mass during his rehabilitation period at Chelsea’. The winger – who can also be used as a wing back, perfect for Alonso’s system – finished the campaign with Sporting before going away with Portugal’s Under 21s.
Rather than go to Dubai or Ibiza or Mykonos or wherever today’s footballers tend to holiday, we are told Quenda decided to remain in Lisbon, immediately resuming recovery and strength-training sessions given to him by Chelsea. Now, sources say Quenda travelled to London on Saturday before beginning work with Alonso.
We will return to the intricacies of Alonso’s way of working in a moment, but first, a story which shows how long he has held leadership qualities.
Chelsea have handed Alonso the title of ‘manager’ rather than ‘head coach’ as recognition of the say he will be allowed in club matters, including signings. Once, though, he was crucial in ensuring his new employers were not successful in securing a transfer target.
That was Glen Johnson. Both Chelsea and Liverpool had submitted similar offers to Portsmouth in summer 2009 of around £17.5m, and so Pompey’s executive chairman Peter Storrie told Johnson he was free to choose his next club. It was here that Alonso agreed to help despite being on his way out of Anfield, soon to sign for Real.
‘I spent a lot of time on the phone talking to both Xabi and Steven Gerrard,’ Johnson tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘They were explaining to me that I was the final piece to their puzzle at Liverpool.’
Johnson signed for Liverpool on June 26, 2009. Alonso left for Madrid on August 5. So they were not together for long, though Johnson recalls recognising him as a leader. Not only from their phone calls but in their brief pre-season together.
Glen Johnson with Rafa Benitez on the day he joined Liverpool in 2009, a deal which Alonso helped get over the line
‘There were definitely signs that Xabi would be a manager when I played with him, but you don’t always realise it until later in life,’ Johnson adds, speaking to us via LiveFootballTickets. ‘He was always respected, and he mastered the tactical and technical side of the game as he was never an out-and-out athlete. He wasn’t going to put in the most miles in the team, and he was always quite slow, but his brain moved fast. He was so intelligent that it didn’t matter if he was quick.
‘He was always a step ahead of everyone else, reading the game effortlessly, which is why he was such a brilliant player. Now he is using those skills as a manager, which makes complete sense to me. He’s proven already that he is a great manager and his football intelligence will be crucial to improving Chelsea next season.’
After victories, Alonso does not only aim to lap up the supporters’ appreciation for himself. At Leverkusen, he would tell his assistants and analysts to join him on the pitch so that they too heard the applause. In the manager’s mind, it shows they are a team, together, a family.
As for analysing the opposition, Alonso does not simply delegate those duties to others, telling them to study the footage and their pass matrixes and average positions and deliver their data pack to his desk three days before a game. The Spaniard wants to do it himself before they come together to trade observations, and that approach will be familiar inside Cobham.
Enzo Maresca was the same. The Italian had three computer monitors on his desk in his office at Chelsea’s training ground. Visitors would usually find him there in between sessions, watching football, studying opponents. Didn’t matter who it was – Maresca wanted to know all of their secrets.
Before a Conference League clash away at Swedish minnows Djurgarden, for example, he watched their last six fixtures in full. It was Maresca’s zen space, with a candle usually flickering on one side of his desk while he burned himself at both ends.
Alonso is similarly obsessed. ‘He watched a lot of games by himself,’ Daum says. ‘You can have coaches who watch the last game of the next opponent, and then they get the information from the experts around them. But for Xabi, this was not enough. If you want to be better than the opponent, you have to know everything about them, every scenario, and I will give you a good example.’
Daum cites the time Leverkusen faced Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga in February 2024. It was the biggest threat to their title charge, and indeed their unbeaten season, and they suspected that Bayern boss Thomas Tuchel might spring a surprise with his starting line-up. Daum explains how Alonso concocted a Plan A and B for when they received confirmation of the Bayern team, 75 minutes before kick-off.
‘Xabi said, “For this game, we have to do something very different”,’ Daum explains. ‘Because we played against them quite often, they knew us, we knew them. So we prepared two scenarios.
‘He was always a step ahead of everyone else, reading the game effortlessly, which is why he was such a brilliant player. Now he is using those skills as a manager,’ says Johnson
The new Chelsea boss will have a Plan B ready to change to in the event a team fields an unexpected line-up, when his side will have just 75 minutes to react
‘For Xabi, it’s important we get the line-up of the opponent before the match, see if they do something different, then have a Plan B. We had slides and clips prepared. We showed these to the players. We changed before the game. People don’t know. But this helped us surprise them, and at the end, we won 3-0.’
Tuchel’s surprise had been to try to mirror their opponents by starting with three at the back. It didn’t work. No team had kept Bayern’s expected goals so low since data records began, Leverkusen restricting the side led by Harry Kane to 0.27 xG. It was described as a tactical masterclass in Germany, though half the battle is translating instructions to the team.
According to another source who worked with Alonso, Leverkusen embraced innovation, including using touchscreen televisions with tailored video sequences prepared for each player. They could also access these highlights via their smartphones if not at the training ground. Florian Wirtz, for example, might be shown examples of the ‘sacrificial runs’ he should be making – the ones you make to occupy an opponent and open up space for others and which Alonso wants.
This victory over Bayern sent Leverkusen five points clear at the top of the Bundesliga table as they began to believe they were truly ready to get rid of their ‘Neverkusen’ nickname.
It is an example of perfect preparation rather than scrambling to respond in real time. Occasionally, even for all of his painstaking analysis, Maresca was caught by surprise at Chelsea.
When Sunderland visited Stamford Bridge in October 2025, Maresca prepared his tactical plan for facing a back four. He had watched back all nine of their games under Regis Le Bris that season, and not once had they started with a back five. Then, Maresca and his assistants concluded from Sunderland’s line-up and warm-up that they were using a 5-4-1 system on this occasion.
In the Chelsea changing room, 10 minutes before kick-off, Maresca told his players they had to throw their plan ‘in the rubbish’. They needed to issue new instructions. The clock was ticking. The first bell rang, which is their warning to get ready to leave. Then the second bell rang, which tells them it’s time to line up in the tunnel. Confusion swirled, and Sunderland beat Chelsea 2-1.
Alonso and his Leverkusen side got the better of Thomas Tuchel, then managing Bayern Munich, 3-0 in a huge Bundesliga clash in 2024
Alonso worked his magic with now-Liverpool stars Florian Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong at Leverkusen
In July 2017, adidas pulled together an all-star team of talented young footballers for a web series. They called them Tango Squad FC. They needed a manager, and asked one of their ambassadors, Alonso. They would travel around Europe together, train and learn from some of the biggest names from Paul Pogba and Juan Mata to Gareth Bale and Marcelo, and play fixtures.
Therefore, technically, Alonso’s first-ever match as a manager was in charge of this seven-a-side team – against Deportivo Asociacion de Vecinos Santa Ana in Madrid in 2017.
Jack Downer – also known as ‘Street Panna’ – manned the left wing in that match. He is English, and was 19 at the time. Downer is the best street footballer you will find. He is a two-time world champion of his art, and has more than a million followers on Instagram.
‘Xabi was actually the first autograph I ever bought with my own money,’ he tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘I loved him. I’m a lifelong Liverpool fan. They say don’t meet your idols but meeting him proved that statement wrong. He was 100 per cent a gentleman.
‘If anything that is underplaying it. He is very calm, collected, well considered. Down to earth, too. There was no pretentiousness, no arrogance. Just this calm comfort. I can imagine him being an amazing friend.
‘I can imagine him being an amazing coach, and he was a great coach. He was very involved. That was something I didn’t actually anticipate. It was obviously something I hoped for. With it being for a brand, I wasn’t sure it would be legit, but he was super involved.’
Alonso (left) could come up against his former Spain, Liverpool and Real Madrid team-mate – and successor as Real manager – Alvaro Arbeloa (right) in his Chelsea debut
The Premier League’s fixture list for 2026-27 has thrown up the possibility of Alonso’s first competitive match as Chelsea manager coming against his Real Madrid successor Alvaro Arbeloa, if the latter is appointed by Fulham.
At the same time Alonso was managing Tango Squad FC, Arbeloa was coaching a team made up of talented YouTubers called Mambo FC. In 2018, a game between the two was set up, Alonso’s Tango versus Arbeloa’s Mambo. Alonso told the camera in adidas’ web series: ‘We’re going to crush them.’ They did, winning 4-2 in a five-a-side match in Madrid.
Downer played in that fixture, too. Alonso spoke to him in English, but Tango Squad FC carried various nationalities, and he spoke to others in Spanish and German. Downer thinks he can recall Alonso also speaking to one of his team-mates in Italian. That would tally with rumours Alonso spoke a little Italian over the phone to Marco Palestra, when Chelsea were trying to convince Atalanta’s versatile defender to choose them over Inter Milan last week.
Alonso showed a specific interest in Downer’s skillset. ‘He seemed genuinely excited about how street football could be involved in 11 v 11,’ Downer adds. ‘He was probably more helpful away from camera. We got sent folders with specific drills and areas to work on to improve which were selected by him.
‘One time, he was breaking down pressing for me, the idea of cutting off lines when I was on the wing – look at their strong foot, where they want to go, curving your run. It is basic, but I’ve always been able to apply it since, and that’s because of how he communicated it. It’s incredibly cool to think I was in that first match with Xabi as a manager.
‘We thought it then, but to see what he’s done since, and what I’m sure he’s about to do with Chelsea, I’m incredibly proud, grateful and so happy to see him go from success to success. Nobody deserves it more.’
In Germany, when facing a fixture every three days, give or take, Bundesliga club insiders call them ‘English weeks’. Alonso will not have that immediate issue at Chelsea, given their lack of European football, and so will have time to work on the training pitch with his players.
One former colleague of Alonso’s, who did not want to be named within this piece but kindly spoke to us off the record to answer a few questions, mentioned how Chelsea’s squad will find him an ‘extremely nice person despite everything he has achieved in football’. However, he added they should also be prepared to see his ‘fire’ on occasion as his half-time team talks can be passionate.
Alonso’s language skills came in handy when convincing Atalanta wing-back Marco Palestra to join Chelsea this week
‘Chelsea have a very talented squad, so much quality, and the flexibility of the players in the squad fits (his style) perfectly’
This same source said Chelsea’s players will be wowed when they see what he can do in training. Basically: he’s still got it, the talent that made him a magnificent midfielder for Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, and he is perfectly willing to prove that class is permanent.
When asked about this, Daum laughs and concurs. ‘They will have big respect because on the pitch, he plays super passes and is highly involved in training,’ Daum tells us. ‘Even sometimes, people said if you see him in training that he could also start the game!
‘Chelsea have a very talented squad, so much quality, and the flexibility of the players in the squad fits (his style) perfectly. He can be flexible in structure, in behaviours, with these guys in any way. I don’t know the average age of Chelsea’s XI, but it is quite young, I assume?’
Indeed, they are the youngest side in the Premier League at present. ‘Ah,’ Daum exhales. ‘It’s perfect. They will want to work hard with him!’ Chelsea’s players do not have long to wait now.
