There is hardly anything more difficult for the Bundesliga opponents this season than scoring a goal against Bayer 04 Leverkusen. The Werkself’s defense is exceptional in many respects.
Things move quickly in professional football. Even before the current season, there were not exactly quiet rumors that Bayer 04 Leverkusen could part ways with Jonathan Tah. The central defender, who was always a great promise for the Werkself but was never quite convincing in his previous eight years, was apparently toying with a move to the English Premier League in order to get a fresh start.
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After all, at the age of 28 it is still far from too late. In the end, Tah stayed under the Bavarian Cross – and is currently playing the season of his life.
He obviously had a sense of what extraordinary things could happen. “I noticed that something was emerging. I always knew what I had here,” said Tah before the season. The national player is now an almost irreplaceable force in the defense of coach Xabi Alonso’s team.
And together with his direct (back five) teammates Odilon Kossounou and Jeremie Frimpong (on his right side) and Edmond Tapsoba and Alejandro Grimaldo (on his left side), he made the Bayer defense almost impenetrable.
Tah with strong stats
So far, 18 goals conceded (0.7 on average per game) in 26 games is an impressive interim result, which is also a top figure across Europe. Tah stands out in this chain because he has evolved tremendously. “As you get older, you take on more responsibility on the pitch and speak up more, even off the pitch in the dressing room,” says the Leverkusen player.
His game and the consistency he has gained under Alonso are convincing, his stats are outstanding. He has won over 70 percent of his aerial duels so far this season (best value in the team) and intercepted the most passes at Bayer.
He is also surprisingly supple and fast for his size; his top speed of 35.8 km/h is only bettered by Jeremie Frimpong (36 km/h top speed) at Bayer this season. His enormous ball security rounds off his performance, Tah has the best pass rate at Bayer (97 percent completed, also one of the best values in the league).
Hradecky is almost impossible to defeat
But Tah’s companions also know how to convince. The Ivorian Kossounou has a pass rate of 90 percent of incoming balls, and he also runs past most of his opponents at a top speed of 35 km/h. Tapsoba also reaches a good 34.1 km/h, and the 25-year-old professional from Burkina Faso also has the best duel record at Bayer 04 (a very good 63 percent won).
In Lukas Hradecky, Alonso has a powerful and experienced goalkeeper. The fact that there was only one long-range goal conceded (the only goal in the Bundesliga) is also due to Hradecky’s very good season in the Bayer cage.
The Finn saved 79 percent of all balls on his goal, making him number one in the league. “We want to create something extraordinary. And to do that you have to do something extraordinary,” said the 34-year-old recently.
Defensive stability, offensive efficiency
A special feature can be admired on both sidelines in Leverkusen. Grimaldo and Frimpong create an almost unique combination of defensive stability and offensive effectiveness on the wing. Bayer 04 conceded a total of five goals from the wings (two from the right, three from the left), all other teams were defeated at least 13 times from the wings.
Added to this is the offensive strength of the two professionals. The Spaniard and the Dutchman have an exceptional offensive output: Grimaldo has nine goals and eleven assists (league lead with Leroy Sane), making him Bayer’s top scorer. And Frimpong is hardly inferior to Grimaldo with eight goals and seven assists.
There are replacements
And even if regular defensive players are unavailable, Alonso will find equivalent replacements. In January, Kossounou and Tapsoba played for their countries at the Africa Cup, but the slump predicted by many experts did not materialize because Josip Stanisic and Piero Hincapie seamlessly followed in their footsteps: in four of the first five games of 2024, the score was zero .
And the number of fouls shows how cleverly this Werkself defensive team operates. Bayer 04 committed the fewest fouls overall (219) and also had the fewest duels because the team often dominated the opponents. And: Leverkusen was the only Bundesliga team not to cause a single penalty.
Bayer have never been defeated after a cross from the game (out of 177 opposing crosses), here Jonathan Tah and Co. have outstanding positional play in the center.
Leverkusen’s defensive chain is a foundation that forms the basis for this extraordinary season – which will most likely end with at least the first championship title in the club’s history.