Executives at Bayer Leverkusen, the longstanding however habitually middleweight German soccer crew, have been fielding the messages since not less than February. Some have been delivered in particular person, a quiet blessing after one more victory. Others got here by way of WhatsApp, unsolicited and sudden notes from friends and acquaintances and, to their occasional shock, foes.
Soccer, in spite of everything, is fiercely tribal. Rivals don’t simply supply each other encouragement or congratulations. However because the German league season gathered tempo, a lot wished to laud Leverkusen’s impending achievement: It was, with every victory, getting nearer and nearer to being topped nationwide champion for the primary time.
And, that meant — simply as importantly — that Bayern Munich was not.
Leverkusen will, this weekend, surge over the road and finish a run of Bayern championships that stretches again greater than a decade. No less than it ought to: All Leverkusen requires to seal the title is a single victory, which may come as quickly as its recreation towards Werder Bremen on Sunday, or for Bayern to lose.
The triumph has been a very long time coming, in a single sense; the membership was based 120 years in the past, in 1904, earlier than town of Leverkusen technically existed. However in one other sense it has arrived extra swiftly than anybody anticipated.
Six months in the past, the crew’s charismatic coach, Xabi Alonso, 42, mentioned he would countenance the concept his facet may win the championship provided that it was nonetheless in rivalry in April. As it’s, it’d declare the title so early that it can’t rejoice it correctly: The season remains to be in full swing, and Leverkusen has not less than two extra trophies to chase.
At any time when the title comes, the membership will maintain a low-key postgame celebration for the gamers and their households at its stadium, the BayArena. But it surely won’t maintain the standard parade — at which its followers can have the prospect to salute the gamers — till Might 26, the day after the nation’s different main home competitors, the German cup, concludes. (Leverkusen is favored to win that one, too.)
Organizing that celebration has been one thing of a problem: Leverkusen, a small metropolis sandwiched between Cologne and Düsseldorf, doesn’t possess a civic constructing with a ceremonial balcony large enough to permit the crew to greet its followers. (The membership has mentioned it has a number of choices in thoughts, although nothing has been determined.)
“We will adorn our city in black and red wherever we can,” town’s mayor, Uwe Richrath, mentioned in a press release.
It isn’t an issue the membership — or town authorities — has needed to face earlier than. Bayer Leverkusen, based greater than a century in the past as a sporting outlet for staff on the close by Bayer chemical plant, has received solely two main honors in its lengthy historical past. The newest was in 1993.
As an alternative, Leverkusen has develop into nearly synonymous with agonizing defeat. In 2002, the membership picked up the Anglicized nickname “Neverkusen” after lacking out on the league title, the German cup and the Champions League, Europe’s marquee soccer competitors, on the final hurdle. That fame is so deeply scoured into the membership’s soul that Bayer Leverkusen has patented the German equal, Vizekusen.
Alonso’s crew will, over the subsequent few weeks, exorcise these ghosts in pretty spectacular vogue. His crew has but to lose a recreation this season, and it might nonetheless finish the marketing campaign with extra main honors (three) than it has in its whole historical past.
That achievement carries a significance that can lengthen a way past its hometown.
The ritual dominance lately of Bayern Munich, the nation’s greatest and by far richest membership, had develop into a supply of appreciable concern — both to German fans and the league itself — because the annual chase to win the league, the Bundesliga, has begun to appear stale and predictable.
As the numerous messages which have poured in to Bayer Leverkusen attest, there isn’t any little reduction inside German soccer on the prospect of a altering of the guard, even when it proves non permanent.
“I can say absolutely that it is great for the Bundesliga,” mentioned Peer Naubert, the chief advertising and marketing officer for Bundesliga Worldwide, the group that promotes German soccer overseas. “Having the same champion for 11 years in a row did not have a negative impact, but it did not have a positive one, either.”
Bayer Leverkusen’s success has allowed the Bundesliga to inform a unique story to its worldwide viewers. No less than a part of that may be attributed to Alonso himself: It’s placing, for instance, how a lot of Leverkusen’s social media output options its coach, a beloved former participant for Liverpool, Actual Madrid and Bayern, three of the world’s hottest golf equipment.
However the league as an entire has seen concrete advantages, too, Mr. Naubert mentioned. “In terms of awareness, interest and the number of avid fans,” he mentioned, citing a metric the Bundesliga makes use of to explain viewers who tune in commonly, “we have seen a significant increase.”
Many extra individuals are watching Leverkusen’s video games than previously, he mentioned, however extra individuals are additionally tuning in for different groups, too. There was a corresponding rise within the league’s social media imprint. “There is some freshness, I think,” Mr. Naubert mentioned.
The response amongst followers has been nuanced. It might be stretching it to recommend that Germany is rapturous on the prospect of Leverkusen’s profitable the championship. Followers are too loyal to their very own golf equipment, and German soccer too regionalized, for that. The membership additionally lacks the vast diaspora that rivals like Bayern or Borussia Dortmund have, and so doesn’t intrude on the nationwide consciousness fairly a lot as others.
Leverkusen additionally occupies a considerably uneasy place inside German soccer’s firmament. As an offshoot of the company behemoth Bayer, it’s certainly one of a handful of exceptions to the cherished German mannequin: the so-called 50+1 rule, during which followers are required to be the bulk homeowners of their golf equipment. It’s a longstanding exception, however it’s nonetheless an exception.
That standing means Leverkusen is “kind of the original sin,” mentioned Dario Minden, a spokesman for Unsere Kurve, a bunch representing Germany’s organized followers. It’s that company backing, in his view, that has enabled the membership to climate the monetary influence of the coronavirus pandemic higher than different groups.
“The important thing to see is that the only one to break Bayern’s dominance was a construct of a giant pharmaceutical company,” Mr. Minden mentioned.
However Leverkusen’s prominence is just not a balm for the monetary imbalance that has allowed Bayern to win the championship yearly since 2012, he mentioned.
Even the truth that Leverkusen is assured it might construct on its success — Alonso has turned down approaches from each Liverpool and Bayern to stay as coach subsequent yr, and the crew expects to retain its star participant, Florian Wirtz — is just not proof of a brand new, extra equitable daybreak for rivals across the league.
As an Eintracht Frankfurt fan, Mr. Minden admitted, he takes no pleasure in any crew apart from his personal profitable the championship. “Although maybe that is because I am a bad person,” he mentioned.
Nonetheless, one side of the championship has offered him some solace. “We have this nice word,” he mentioned. “Schadenfreude.”
Like a lot of Germany, Mr. Minden might not be actively celebrating Leverkusen’s impending victory. He can, although, take just a bit pleasure in the truth that it means Bayern Munich, after 11 lengthy years, will once more get to expertise what it means to complete second.
