Xabi Alonso – Head coach

Xabi Alonso was appointed to the position of head coach at Bayer 04 Leverkusen in October 2022. The Spaniard had performed the same function for his homeland club of Real Sociedad in the Basque city of San Sebastian with the second team. Alonso took his first steps in coaching with the youth teams at Real Madrid where he met his assistant coach Sebastian Parrilla.

Alonso won a large number of trophies as a player. In 2004 he moved from northern Spain to to play for Liverpool for five years and that was followed by five years at Real Madrid. Alonso spent the last three years of his playing career at Bayern Munich. The world class midfielder has won the World Cup once, the European Championships twice, two Champions League titles as well as numerous national titles.