Unlike at the beginning of the season, Bayer’s Granit Xhaka has made a big impact again in recent weeks. The midfield playmaker talks about it – and looks ahead.
When Granit Xhaka made another sliding tackle in the last game of 2024, extra time was already underway. Bayer’s defensive midfielder got to the ball before Freiburg’s Merlin Röhl, but was tripped by the SC Freiburg player and rolled on the floor. A painful, but somehow fitting end to the year for Leverkusen’s midfield boss, who never backs down, always leads the way, even when the score is 5-1 with just a few minutes left to play – and who serves as a role model for all his colleagues.
Since his arrival in the summer of 2023, when he voluntarily turned up at Leverkusen several days before the official start date to begin training, Xhaka has been the leader in the center. He was in the historic 2023 double season, and he is in 2024 – albeit he has not yet been able to show the top form that he expects of himself at the beginning of this season.
Xhaka is the boss in the ring again
One reason for this was certainly that the Bayer game was too restless overall. Leverkusen lost control many a time, allowed the gaps between the individual team parts to become too large too often, which sometimes resulted in wild games like against Leipzig (2:3) or Wolfsburg (4:3). Xhaka had to plug (considerable) gaps and close passing lanes. He is not a sprinter and is not nearly as valuable in these disciplines as he usually is.
He can best bring his immense strategic skills to bear when the game is not getting out of hand, the positional play is good and the Werkself has calm, good phases of possession. Just as in the past few weeks, in which Bayer won eight games in a row, regained control – and Xhaka, who coach Xabi Alonso never wants to do without and almost never does without, rose again to become a fundamental source of rhythm and inspiration by virtue of his calmness and intelligence.
In the first phase of the season, the 32-year-old was by no means down. However, he did not look as efficient as in the last eight games, in which he got a strong kicker grade average of 2.5 – and also looked rather exhausted after the 2023/24 club season, the European Championship, the muscle fiber tear suffered there and the short vacation that followed. Factors that made the early phase of 2024/25 even more difficult for him, as Xhaka himself admitted after the 5-1 win against Freiburg.
“I’m glad,” said the veteran, “that things are going very well again.” At the beginning of the season, the euphoria was huge. Would a few percentage points have made a difference? “Yes, it was maybe also a matter of the mind. It was a good year, a good European Championship with Switzerland,” he explained, adding: ‘It’s not that we didn’t want to, but maybe we couldn’t go to 100 percent of our limit.’ Unlike in the past few weeks, when Xhaka and Co. were again pushing the envelope.
Xhaka doesn’t want to make big speeches
Da “hat man, glaube ich, wieder den Granit der vergangenen Saison gesehen. I’m happy that I can help the team every day,” said Xhaka, who has big goals for 2025 but doesn’t want to make big speeches. “We don’t talk about titles, we didn’t do that last year either,” emphasized Leverkusen’s midfield boss. He reminded everyone that Bayer won the Bundesliga “because we stayed grounded, worked hard and gave it our all every third day”.
The team knows “that it’s been a great year for us. We know it’s been a good preliminary round – with the Champions League, the cup and the championship”. The Werkself are still in the running in all competitions and are back on form after a shaky start to the season. However, a lot of work is needed to keep this up for as long as possible. In the new year, Bayer wants to “come back even stronger,” Xhaka confirmed. He will lead the way again. What else would you expect?
