Executives at Bayer Leverkusen, the storied but often middling German team, have been issuing messages since at least February. Some were hand-delivered, a quiet blessing after another win. Others come through WhatsApp, unsolicited and unexpected notes from colleagues and acquaintances, and sometimes, to their surprise, traditional enemies.
After all, football is fiercely tribal. Competitors do not easily offer words of encouragement or congratulations to each other. But as the German season gathers pace, many want to praise Leverkusen's impending achievement: With each victory, they inch closer and closer to being crowned national champions for the first time.
And that means – just as importantly – Bayern Munich don't.
This weekend, Leverkusen will take the lead and end Bayern's more than decade-long championship streak. At least it should be: All Leverkusen require to win the title is a single win, which could come as soon as Sunday against Werder Bremen, or for Bayern to lose.
In a sense, victory has been a long time coming; The club was founded 120 years ago, in 1904, before the city of Leverkusen technically existed. But in another sense, it came faster than anyone predicted.
Six months ago, the team's charismatic coach, Xabi Alonso, 42, said he would endorse the idea that his team could only win the title if they were still in contention come April. As it stands, they could win the title so early that they won't be able to celebrate properly: The season is still in full swing and Leverkusen have at least two more titles to chase.
Whenever the title comes, the club will host an intimate post-match party for the players and their families at the BayArena stadium. But they will not hold the traditional parade – at which fans will have a chance to greet the players – until May 26, the day after the country's other major domestic tournament, the German Cup , end. (Leverkusen are also favored to win that match.)
Organizing that celebration was a challenge: Leverkusen, a small city between Cologne and Düsseldorf, does not possess a civic building with a ceremonial balcony large enough for the team to welcome fans. (The club said it had considered a number of options, although nothing had been decided.)
“We will paint our city in black and red wherever possible,” the city's mayor, Uwe Richrath, said in a statement.
It's not a problem the club – or the city government – has ever faced before. Bayer Leverkusen, founded more than a century ago as a sports shop for workers at the nearby Bayer chemical plant, has won only two major titles in its long history. The most recent time was in 1993.
Instead, Leverkusen is almost synonymous with painful defeat. In 2002, the club adopted the anglicized nickname “Neverkusen” after missing out on the championship, German Cup and Champions League, Europe's premier football tournament, in the final round. That reputation is so ingrained in the club's soul that Bayer Leverkusen patented its German equivalent, Vizekusen.
Over the next few weeks, Alonso's team will exorcise those ghosts in quite a spectacular way. His team is yet to lose a game this season and could still end the campaign with more major trophies (three) than in its entire history.
That achievement carries a significance that will extend beyond its homeland.
The ceremonial dominance in recent years of Bayern Munich, by far the country's biggest and richest club, has become a source of considerable concern – for both German fans and the tournament itself – as the annual chase for the Bundesliga title has begun to look stale and predictable.
As many messages sent to Bayer Leverkusen attest, German football is not relieved at the prospect of a changing of the guard, even if it is only temporary.
“I can absolutely say it's been great for the Bundesliga,” said Peer Naubert, chief marketing officer of Bundesliga International, the organization that promotes German soccer abroad. “Having the same champion 11 years in a row doesn't have a negative impact but it doesn't have a positive impact either.”
Bayer Leverkusen's success has allowed the Bundesliga to tell a different story to an international audience. At least some of that can be attributed to Alonso himself: It's surprising, for example, how many of Leverkusen's social media products mention their coach, a beloved former player of Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern, three of the most famous clubs in the world.
But Mr. Naubert said the league as a whole has also received concrete benefits. “In terms of awareness, interest and the number of passionate fans,” he said, citing a metric the Bundesliga uses to describe regular viewers, “we saw significant increase”.
More people are watching Leverkusen matches than before, he said, but more people are also watching other teams. The tournament's social media footprint has also increased accordingly. “I think there's something new,” Mr. Naubert said.
Reaction among fans has been nuanced. It would be an exaggeration to say that Germany is delighted at the prospect of Leverkusen winning the championship. Fans are too loyal to their clubs and German football is too regionalized to accept that. The club also lacks the extensive diaspora of rivals such as Bayern or Borussia Dortmund, and therefore does not intrude as much on the national consciousness as other clubs.
Leverkusen also occupies a somewhat uncomfortable position in German football. An offshoot of giant conglomerate Bayer, it is one of the few exceptions to Germany's beloved model: the so-called 50+1 rule, in which fans are required to be the owners. majority ownership of their club. It's a long-standing exception, but it's still an exception.
Dario Minden, spokesman for Unsere Kurve, a group representing organized German fans, said that situation meant Leverkusen were “a kind of original sin”. In his view, it was corporate support that helped the club weather the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic better than other teams.
“It is important to see that the only one that can break Bayern's dominance is the work of a giant pharmaceutical company,” Mr. Minden said.
But Leverkusen's prominence is no balm for the financial imbalance that has helped Bayern win the title every year since 2012, he said.
Even Leverkusen are confident they can build on their success – Alonso has turned down offers from both Liverpool and Bayern to stay on as coach next year, and the team expects to keep Nor is his star player, Florian Wirtz, evidence of a new strategy. , dawns more fairness for opponents across the league.
As an Eintracht Frankfurt fan, Mr. Minden admitted that he is not happy with any other team than his own championship. “Though maybe that's because I'm a bad person,” he said.
However, one aspect of the championship gave him some solace. “We have this beautiful word,” he said. “Schadenfreude.”
Like much of Germany, Mr Minden may not be actively celebrating Leverkusen's impending victory. However, he can feel a little satisfied because it means that Bayern Munich, after 11 long years, will again experience what it means to be second.
