How does Leverkusen's undefeated run compare?

Leverkusen have been a joy to behold this season, scoring 87 goals and conceding just 23 on the way to a first-ever Bundesliga title - going from Neverkusen to never losing this term. 

Xabi Alonso has moulded a team in his image. The midfielder was the consummate team player across a career that took in trophy-laden spells at Liverpool, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, and a continental treble remains on for his Leverkusen, who have been more than the sum of their parts.

That's not to say there aren't some shining stars at the BayArena. Wing-backs Álex Grimaldo and Jeremie Frimpong have contributed a barely fathomable 39 goals and assists between them in 33 Bundesliga matches in 2023/24 and Florian Wirtz looks like perhaps the best young player in the game - especially after his hat-trick heroics in the title-clinching win over Werder Bremen.

But they are part of a well-oiled 3-4-2-1 unit, one that hasn't tasted defeat since they lost 3-0 to Bochum on the final day of the 2022/23 campaign - a mammoth 50 games ago in all competitions.

It is a record that is now 18 games and counting better than the next-best in the German game, which belongs to Hansi Flick's Bayern of four seasons ago. Flick had only picked up the reins from Niko Kovač in November 2019, but concluded the campaign with an intercontinental sextuple of titles. They were finally beaten, by Hoffenheim, in September of the following season.

The third-best run goes to Werder Bremen, who broke Bayern's strangle-hold on the Bundesliga in 2004 after putting together a 27-game unbeaten run across all competitions, during which time Johan Micoud, Aílton and Co. also won the DFB Cup.

A post-Kevin Keegan Hamburg are fourth on this particular list, while two incarnations of Bayern round out the top five, with their 1988 and 1986 vintages both going 25 games without defeat.

Leverkusen are still short of the record in the Bundesliga, however, that honour going to Pep Guardiola's Bayern, whose 53-game streak across two seasons was actually kicked off by his predecessor Jupp Heynckes. The period saw Guardiola win the first of his three Bundesliga titles, although his first defeat came to Jürgen Klopp's Borussia Dortmund in the season-opening Super Cup. 

Klopp had previously led Die Schwarzgelben to back-to-back Bundesliga's in 2011 and 2012 - the first time that Bayern had been denied the title by the same team in consecutive seasons since the aforementioned Hamburg, for whom Horst Hrubesch banished memories of Keegan with 18 goals in the Bundesliga and 20 in all competitions in 1982/83.

It means that if Leverkusen see out the current 34-game season without defeat - which they only have to avoid defeat at home to Augsburg on the final day to ensure - they would sneak onto this particular podium behind Bayern and Hamburg. 

The outright record - across all competitions - belongs to Alonso, and he is fast adding silverware. To the relief of Bayer fans and many a neutral, he has reaffirmed his commitment to Leverkusen's cause and will be at the helm next season, in which time the Bundesliga record could well topple too.