Leverkusen won the Bundesliga title for the first time in its 120-year history on Sunday with a 5-0 victory over Werder Bremen, breaking Bayern Munich’s 11-year monopoly on Germany’s top flight. Xavi Alonso’s Leverkusen knew victory would secure the title with five games remaining but showed no sign of nerves in a dominant performance. A hat-trick from Florian Wirtz and goals from Victor Boniface and Granit Xhaka ended their run in all competitions. The losing record extended to an astonishing 43 games. Leverkusen won the title for the first time after finishing second five times in their history, allowing them to realize their dream of a treble while shedding their unwanted “Neverkusen” nickname for good.

With 10 minutes left in the game, long-suffering fans began streaming towards the sidelines, with some jumping the gun and storming onto the pitch while the game was still going on.

Leverkusen’s players welcomed fans back and some obliged, albeit briefly. The stands quickly emptied out after 90 minutes and tearful fans took to the grass to celebrate with the players.

Leverkusen currently has 79 points, the best total in German league history after 29 games, 16 points ahead of second-placed Bayern and third-placed Stuttgart.

The Leverkusen bus arrived at the stadium 90 minutes before kick-off and passed through a sea of ​​fans dressed in black and red to the Bayer Arena, which can accommodate 30,000 people.

The street is commonly known as Bismarck Street, with fans putting up makeshift signs reading “Xavi Alonso Street” on the main thoroughfare in memory of the club’s coach.

Alonso looked ahead to Thursday’s Europa League trip to London to face West Ham United, making seven changes to the starting XI and substitute stars Wirtz, Jeremy Frimpong and Alex Grimaldo. The latter is appearing in the league for the first time this season.

Grimaldo’s substitute Piero Hincapie had an early shot saved but a fit Boniface, making his first start since mid-December, put the home side ahead.

With 22 minutes remaining, Jonas Hofmann was brought down by Werder Bremen player Julian Maratini in the penalty area and VAR urged him to review the contact again on the monitor, with the referee pointing to the spot. .

Boniface stepped up and without hesitation slotted the penalty past the helpless Michael Zeitler to the delight of the home fans.

Shortly before half-time, Hofmann almost became the scorer again when his pass found Amin Adéli, who hit the crossbar.

Werder Bremen started the second half strongly but their hopes of spoiling the game were extinguished in the 60th minute when Boniface found Xhaka who fired a long-range rocket before snapping away in front of the jubilant home fans. got his badge.

Wirtz came on as a half-time substitute for Adley and eight minutes later he replicated Xhaka’s strike from almost the same position on the pitch.

Wirtz added another goal with seven minutes remaining and a hat-trick in the 90th minute to help Leverkusen escape the near-man tag.

Earlier on Sunday, Doanru’s 36th-minute goal gave Freiburg a 1-0 win over Darmstadt, moving the bottom-placed hosts closer to immediate relegation.

Darmstadt have been winless since October and have managed just two wins all year. This defeat leaves Darmstadt bottom of the table, eight points off the bottom two and 13 points off safety with five points remaining. game.

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