Florian Wirtz, Granit Xhaka and Bayer Leverkusen's key players against VfB Stuttgart in the 2024 Supercup
Bayer Leverkusen will add the Supercup to their impressive 2023/24 domestic double if they defeat VfB Stuttgart on Saturday – bundesliga.com picks out six key members of the Bundesliga champions’ squad ahead of the clash at the BayArena.
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When Tapsoba signed a contract extension through to 2028 with the 2023/24 season barely underway, Leverkusen’s sporting director, Simon Rolfes, said, “Edmond is one of the best central defenders in the Bundesliga, he has the potential to establish himself at the very top of the game.” Over the remainder of Leverkusen’s historic campaign, he would prove Rolfes right.
The Burkina Faso international, who missed three games due to the Africa Cup of Nations, was a key member of Leverkusen’s three-man backline, using his speed (clocked fastest at 21.1mph) and controlled aggression (winning 60 per cent of his duels) to provide the team with a platform on which they triumphed so memorably.
Watch: Leverkusen and Stuttgart are all set for the Supercup
2) Granit Xhaka
Only suspension kept the veteran Switzerland international midfielder off the pitch last season as he was Xabi Alonso’s most-used outfield player (2827 minutes). "He has had a huge impact on the team since day one. He is an extremely important player for us", said Alonso. "If you have good midfielders, you play better."
It is certainly not overstating things to say Xhaka was pivotal to Leverkusen’s success in his first season back in Germany after his spell at Arsenal. No-one had more touches than him in the Bundesliga last season (3,588, an average of 114 per 90 minutes) and only two players league-wide covered more ground than the 31-year-old (231.1 miles). He also made the most passes (3,240) and was up there with the best with a 93 per cent completion rate. He won 55 per cent of his duels to add steel to the silk in what was a midfield masterpiece fittingly capped by the last of his three goals in 2023/24: the winner in the DFB Cup final against Kaiserslautern.
Watch: Granit Xhaka is fond of the spectacular
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“It’s a brilliant club”, said Frimpong upon putting pen-to-paper on his contract extension through to 2028 back in October. “I’ve been here almost three years now and the team keeps on growing and growing.” The fact they grew all the way to being double winners might even have surprised the ever-optimistic Frimpong if you had told him at the time. But the fact they did was in large part down to the Netherlands international right wing-back.
He set up seven goals and scored nine himself, including his spectacular long-distance effort in the 3-0 home win over Bayern Munich on Matchday 21 that sent the message that Alonso’s men were capable of ending the Bavarians’ 11-year stranglehold on the German top-flight title.
His jet-heeled bursts forward caused constant concern for opposition defences. They came at breakneck speed too – he clocked a high of 22.3mph – and there were plenty of them: his total of 1006 sprints was only bettered by Tim Kleindienst (1056) and Jan-Niklas Beste (1022).
Watch: All of Jeremie Frimpong’s goals and assists in 2023/24
If Frimpong was Leverkusen’s yin, Grimaldo was their yang, bringing balance to the team and even more threat down the left-hand side. In his 31 starts, he recorded a league-high 13 assists and added a further 10 himself, giving him the most goal involvements of any member of the championship-winning squad. He also won nearly half of his duels (49 per cent) and did so cleanly, getting booked just once.
“I can’t explain it,” said Alonso when asked early in the season why Grimaldo, who turned 28 soon after joining Leverkusen from Benfica, had never played for Spain’s senior team. “He has the quality to do so, not only because of his free-kicks. He’s great defensively down the left. If he keeps going like this, a call-up to the national team will come.”
It did shortly after in November last year, and Grimaldo even returned to his club a European champion having been part of the Spain squad that won UEFA Euro 2024 in his adopted country.
Watch: Alejandro Grimaldo - The knuckle-ball king
You might well wonder what sort of numbers the Nigeria international striker might have put up if he had not picked up a muscle injury with the Super Eagles in preparation for the Africa Cup of Nations in early 2024.
It meant he missed the tournament and 12 league games, but bounced back to score four times in the final seven matches of the campaign to finish on a team-high 14 goals and 22 goal involvements, the same as Florian Wirtz and just one behind Grimaldo.
And why did he join Leverkusen? “For Florian Wirtz of course," said the 23-year-old, who had watched videos of the Leverkusen prodigy before he moved to Germany from Belgian side Union Saint Gilloise in summer 2023. “When my agent told me of Leverkusen’s interest, it was immediately clear for me that I really wanted to play in the same team as him.”
Their chemistry worked too with Wirtz providing four of Bonfiace’s goals, more than any other Leverkusen player.
Watch: Victor Boniface was last term's Rookie of the Season
And so to Wirtz, the 2023/24 Bundesliga Player of the Year, which pretty much sums up his contribution to Leverkusen’s campaign. He scored 11 times in 32 league games – only Boniface struck more – and matched that tally in assists. Already a multiple record-breaker, the 21-year-old added two more with his hat-trick in the 5-0 defeat of Werder Bremen that wrapped up the league title on Matchday 29: he became the third-youngest scorer of a Bundesliga hat-trick and the youngest to have done so coming off the bench.
Watch: The best of Florian Wirtz
“Florian is like a Brazilian,” said former Leverkusen and Bayern Munich Brazil international Paulo Sergio. “Leverkusen have a great team, they all do their job. But he is the player that has something special in his feet. It’s a delight to be able to watch him play.”
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