Anyone who thought that Bayer Leverkusen would slacken over the course of the summer is wrong.

Xabi Alonso has built a team that will not give anyone anything under any circumstances and is not willing to give up its record in the national championship, which dates back to May 2023.

On Saturday, Leverkusen, who won the league and cup double last season, beat Stuttgart 5-4 on penalties in the German Super Cup. But that’s not the whole story. After the final whistle, after a tough, nasty game, Gloria Estefan’s “I Will Survive” played over the BayArena’s loudspeakers, and that was more fitting.

Somehow, and this time too, Leverkusen refused to lose.

In fact, they took the lead that night when Victor Boniface netted from close range after 11 minutes. But Stuttgart are talented and quickly equalised with a flowing move that Enzo Millot finished off.

Then came the misfortune. Martin Terrier was signed from Rennes in the summer and caught Ermedin Demirovic too late and too high in the 37th minute of his debut and was rightly shown the red card. At the start of the second half, Deniz Undav put Stuttgart 2-1 ahead with a goal and within touching distance of their first Supercup since 1992.

And that was the title they wanted. VfB were chasing it with all their might. Their football was elegant and classy, ​​but they had also come with the intention of competing physically, and after Undav scored his goal – his first since joining Leverkusen on loan from Brighton in the summer – it seemed inevitable that Leverkusen would lose in Germany for the first time in 15 months.

Not so fast. Alonso was keen to experiment with his line-up and gave Terrier – fatefully – and Aleix Garcia, who was signed from Girona in the summer, his debuts. He left Florian Wirtz, Jonathan Tah, Alex Grimaldo, Jeremie Frimpong and Patrick Schick on the bench and so it was obviously an advantage to have this strength in reserve.

Tah came on after the red card to bolster the defence, while the other four came on in the second half and immediately helped to seize the momentum.

Stuttgart are a formidable opponent and not someone who would be keen to play against them in this year’s Champions League. In any other season they would have been the talk of the town last year. Sebastian Hoeneß took them from 16th to 2nd in a single season and had them playing the most lively attacking football in the Bundesliga. On Saturday they brought that technical challenge to the BayArena, but also something else – something Leverkusen will have to contend with week in, week out.

Everyone wants to be the team to beat them. Every team they face will turn up the intensity and aggressiveness to write their own piece of history. Stuttgart are perhaps one of the few teams in the country that can outdo Leverkusen at times and their dominance actually seemed to unsettle the hosts.

Stuttgart’s Enzo Millot celebrates his equaliser (Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images)

Alonso, usually so urbane and calm, was very active in his coaching zone and was cautioned for contradiction. Granit Xhaka looked grim for most of the second half. Edmond Tapsoba challenged Demirovic on a set piece.

The story was becoming increasingly obvious. Leverkusen, having forgotten how to lose with dignity, were about to be knocked out by a hungrier team. Stuttgart had more to prove and were determined to send a message to the rest of the league. After the final whistle, Alonso and his players could simply point to the red card, their weakened starting XI and – of course – everything they had achieved in the 2023/24 season before focusing on their title defence, which begins in earnest next weekend.

OK, because haven’t they earned the right to think like that? To keep something in reserve, especially with the new challenge of the Champions League on the horizon?

Yes, but no. From the 70th minute onwards, Leverkusen showed a furious wave of power – a power that doesn’t really belong in a Supercup. The tackles flew. The players ran into each other during set pieces and went forward after every tackle. Almost through sheer willpower, Leverkusen began to control the ball and push Stuttgart back, and ten men looked like twelve or thirteen.

And when it mattered, two minutes before the end, they broke through the VfB defense with precision, sent Schick through to equalize and won on penalties.

In some ways, we’ve seen it all before. Last season’s double was based on late, improbable comebacks. Against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena. Against Borussia Dortmund at the Westfalenstadion. Against Hoeneß’ Stuttgart in April, when Robert Andrich earned a draw with a goal in injury time.

But over time things have changed – it’s less about saving points and more about preserving the aura. Leverkusen did this when the title was already won last season. The draw in Dortmund and Andrich’s goal against Stuttgart were memorable but pragmatically pointless. And yet Alonso’s players watched both in a frenzy, as if everything was at stake.

It’s a habit that’s ingrained and means they’re in foreign territory. It’s not so much that they’re constantly winning, but more the way they do it.

Smart champions know when to go all out. How many times in England, for example, has a disappointing Manchester City managed to trudge through the first half of the season, only to resurface in the new year and win it all? How many times has Bayern Munich been the same – they have never won the Bundesliga unbeaten and often seemed to comfortably slack off to keep the bigger picture in mind. Between 2012 and 2022, Bayern played ten Supercups in a row and lost four times, each time to pressing opponents desperate to bruise their egos. Not once, however, have they failed to win the league.

Leverkusen is no longer the same. They still play every game as if it were their last and are desperate to show that there is no hole they cannot and will not dig themselves out of. It seems untenable – and yet everyone has been saying that for months.

(Top photo: Rene Nijhuis/MB Media/Getty Images)