Prologue

On October 5, 2022, the world of football in Germany was about to change forever: Xabi Alonso was appointed as the new head coach of Bayer 04 Leverkusen and introduced one day later at a press conference before the 9th matchday against Schalke 04. Almost a year earlier, there had been rumors about a move to Germany to join Borussia Mönchengladbach. Now, the Basque actually decided to gain his first coaching experience in Germany's top division. The fact that Xabi Alonso, after a very successful playing career, would now also make history as a coach, was something that José Mourinho, his former coach at Real Madrid, had already expressed little doubt about in 2019:"His father was a coach, he grew up similarly to me. Then he became a player – much better than me, of course.”1 Xabi has outstanding positioning and knowledge of the game and was trained by the best coaches of his time, so Mourinho concluded:"If you put all that together, Xabi has the best prerequisites to be a very good coach!"2 The Portuguese was not alone in this assessment: Carlo Ancelotti also shared his confidence:"If I had to bet on a player back then who would become a coach, it would have undoubtedly been Xabi. Someone who has played in midfield has more advantages on the bench. A midfielder (...) must have the quality, be tactically clever, have a good view of the game… And Xabi Alonso was one of the best midfielders I ever coached, very intelligent, with fantastic feet and extraordinary professionalism."3

For me, having spent a lot of time in Spain since 2021, particularly in Barcelona and Madrid, it was clear that a new level of coaching was likely to arrive in the Bundesliga. After the first rumors about a move to Germany in spring 2021, I had already taken a closer look at coach Xabi Alonso. At that time, Alonso was coach of the second team of his hometown club Real Sociedad San Sebastián and had gained his first “professional experience” as a coach. The young coach Xabi Alonso quickly achieved something special with his team: In the 2021/2022 season,Sanse, the second team of Real Sociedad San Sebastián, was the only second team inLaLiga2, the second Spanish division. For me it was obvious: I didn't just want to use video to analyze the team's goals and playing style, but also to experience the game alive. Once it was in my mind, I have started making it happen: During my master's degree in Madrid and my internship at the youth academy of Real Madrid, a window of opportunity arose for a visit to a second division game between Fuenlabrada (a suburb of Madrid) andSanse. So on May 7, 2022, I was sitting with my friend from the course on the regional train from Madrid to Fuenlabrada to watch LaLiga2 bottom table duel (21st against 19th) enjoying the best afternoon sunshine. Alonso's team showed a lot of energy, dynamism and passion right from the start, but also demonstrated why they had not collected many points up to that moment: As with many second teams, the issues of experience, maturity (one would call it"ruthlessness") and efficiency played a big role. It almost seemed that Xabi Alonso's team, which still had a realistic chance of staying in the league, would (again) not be rewarded for a good performance, because at halftime the score was 1:0 for the home side of Fuenlabrada, even though they had not contributed much to the game until then. In the second half,Sanse finally equalized – but it was clear that Real Sociedad would need a win to maintain a realistic chance of