A Proper Goodbye

You rarely get a second chance to say goodbye. 

I guess I must be one of the lucky ones in football, because I’m getting that chance now. 

You see, it was actually supposed to be goodbye last summer. I had said yes to Bayern Munich and everything was 90% done. My bags were packed — literally. But it turns out that in the business of football, 90% means nothing. I’d gone along with the team to our pre-season camp, even though I knew I could get the call at any moment, because I wanted to be with my brothers — some of the guys I had known for almost 10 years. With so much uncertainty, I really needed that sense of routine. Just being able to laugh with the guys, it helped me so much. 

One day, when it looked like the deal was done, I got a text from Xabi. 

“Jona, let’s have a chat.”

We went to the meeting room, and Xabi, he has this natural aura ...... it’s hard to even say what it is, but it’s in the way he speaks and looks you in the eye. Sincerity like that can be rare in football. You know what he did as a player, but it’s even more about how he treats you as a person. He commands absolute respect. 

We had quite a deep chat. I don’t want to go into the exact details of what he said, but I’d been at Leverkusen for nine years, and he knew exactly how much this club means to me. He began talking about the qualities I bring to the team, and the influence I had on my teammates, and I got the feeling that he really saw me as someone special. 

He was not speaking to me as the legend. He was simply speaking to me as a person. 

Finally he said, “All the transfer stuff, all the talk about your contract ... Take that out. You are here right now, and as long as you are here, I will support you.”

To hear that from him ..... yeah, I was emotional. 

He could have frozen me out. He could have made me train with the reserves. He could have treated me like a stranger. 

But no, he’s Xabi. He treated me like family. 

When I went home and told my wife about that conversation, she cried. 

She said, “Jona, forget about the football. This is more than just a job. Look at the friendships you’ve made here. Look how beautiful it is.”

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It’s funny, for the last three months, it’s been nothing but rumors. You get sick of seeing your own name on social media. It’s all a little bit ridiculous. 

I don’t think people understand how bizarre it is when you’re about to move. It’s not like FIFA on the PlayStation, you know? You’re at home on the couch, trying to figure out what is going on, and there are so many people texting you randomly, going, “Hey Jona, you should go to this club, bro.”

I’m like, “Oh really? And are you their manager? Because they haven’t even called me!”

Even if a big club calls, it’s like ……  OK, but do they need me? Am I going to be a leader or a backup signing? These questions can really mess with your head, and in the end, you have to look in the mirror and ask yourself what you really really want. 

Well, I want to go where I can be the best version of Jona.

And for me, that place is Bayern. 

I had other offers that were honestly really good. I like the idea of going abroad and learning a new language, a new culture. But for me, it always comes down to personal growth, the people and the culture, and I’ll be joining one of the top clubs in the world, with a very, very special coach. 

I began following Vincent Kompany when he played for Hamburger SV, and I was a kid who was dreaming of playing for my local team. You could see that he was about to become one of the best centre-backs in the world, and I really admired him back then. Now that he’s become one of the leaders of his generation, I admire him even more. We both have an African dad and a European mum. For me, there has always been a special connection there. 

Once you speak to him, you feel his passion, his ideas and his values. Like Xabi, he sees you as a human being first, and then as a professional. He told me about how I’d fit into the team, and how he can help me become a better centreback. 

It was just what I wanted to hear. I loved the idea of playing for him. 

In the end, I could get what I wanted right here in Germany. 

But before I begin this new chapter, I want to say goodbye properly to a place that is so special to me. And it’s a place that is honestly very, very underrated in the football world. 

For the last decade, Leverkusen has been more than just a home. It’s been like a little bubble where I’ve been able to learn and grow. There are so many people here who have taught me so much. Even a young guy like Florian Wirtz ……. What can a big centreback learn from Flo? Nobody can do what he does on the ball. But I remember the first week he was training with the first team, this kid at 17 years old, I came across a video he had done with adidas. They asked what he wanted to achieve, and he said, “I want to win the Ballon d’Or.”

A lot of players say that, right? But you could tell that Florian really meant it. It was how he said it, the steel in his eyes …….. He’s not scared of anything. When you see the work he puts in, you realise that he can pull it off. 

Florian can earn all the money in the world, but he won’t change. He has this street footballer mentality. 

To him it’s only about the game, you know? Never anything else.

I think that’s a great lesson for any footballer.

Then you have the African guys. It’s funny because when Boniface and Tapsoba came here, we were like, “Why are they so relaxed?

My dad’s from the Ivory Coast, but I grew up with German culture, and it almost looks like they don’t care what happens on the pitch. I even asked Tapsoba, “How come you are never nervous?”

He was like, “Bro, you know when I was in Africa? I played without boots. I played without a shirt. I played on dirt and gravel with a tree trunk as a goal post. The Bundesliga? This is easy.”

He and Boniface would always be laughing, telling me how they grew up showering with a bucket. They would rub down with soap, fill a bucket with water and pour it over their heads. They even told me about some days when they didn’t know if they had enough food for breakfast the next morning. So they would simply get up three hours later, right in time for lunch. They slept the hunger away. 

They brought so much joy to work every day. They appreciated how blessed we are to play a child’s game for a living, you know? 

And man, they’re just so funny .... The other day Tapsoba wanted to come to my place for a chat, just to reflect on our time here together, and I was like, “Of course, come over at 6:30 p.m.”

(In Germany, that actually means 6:25.)

The clock turns 6:30. No Tapsoba. 

6:45

I call him up. 

“Bro, where are you?”

He’s like, “I’m on my way.”

But I can hear that he’s not even in his car. I’m like, “Bro, just tell me when you’ll arrive.”

He’s like, “No, no, I’m coming bro, don’t worry.”

“Edmond ...... “

“I’ll text you when I’m there.”

I hang up and wait ....... 7 p.m. ......7:15 ..... 7:30 .... he gets there at 7:45. One hour and 15 minutes late. Even when people are a few minutes late I expect an apology, but for him it’s like nothing happened. It’s no problem because he’s there now.

That’s the mentality. Yeah I was late, but now I’m here so it’s cool. 

Even the Latinos, if we have a video meeting at 10:30, they’ll sit and chat in the dressing room until somebody tells them they’re late. It will usually be some German staff member going, “Guys, we have a meeting, we have to go.”

And I understand enough Spanish to know that they actually get really pissed. They’re like, “What’s wrong with this guy?”

They just don’t get it. “Why is he so stressed? It’s only three minutes.”

Then the video meeting starts, everyone is there, but wait …… where’s Boniface and Tabsoba? 

They haven’t even made it to the dressing room. 

They’re still in the wellness area. 

But the African guys play better like that. When the pressure is on, they chill. They’re able to put this sport into perspective, and I think a lot of players can learn from that, especially the German ones. Sometimes we’re a bit too serious, a little too tight. When you relax a little, you usually play better. 

Thankfully, Xabi was calm if someone was a little late. Three times in a row and he might go, “Come on ….” He always found the right balance. 

I think that’s what made this Leverkusen team such a beautiful experience. So many guys from so many cultures and backgrounds and vibes, just coming together and playing like a symphony. 

Every single person gave something to the group. If you asked me to name one of our most important players, I’d say our third keeper, Niklas Lomb. He’s been here for 17 years, and he knows that he most likely won’t play that many games a season, but every day he trains as if he’ll play in the Champions League final tomorrow. He’s so focused, so vocal, always pushing everyone. As a defender, you’d hear him scream that you had to close your legs near the first post so that he can cover the second post, because a shot between your legs is very hard for him to save. And if you ever forgot  ....... 

“JONA, CLOSE YOUR F****** LEGS.”

Some nights I can still hear him in my dreams. 

“Jona!!!! JONAAAAAAA!!!!”

(Google a picture of him if you don’t know what he looks like. When that guy screams at you, you do as he says.)

I’m not even sure Niklas knows how important he was to our mentality. We used to struggle against smaller teams, but last season we wanted to kill every opponent. If we played a third-tier side in the cup, we treated it like a title clash in front of 80,000 people. That’s the Niklas Lomb mentality. 

Luckily, that mindset was instilled in me when I first came here as a teenager.  

I’ll never forget my first training session here, we had a one v one drill, and I had to defend against Son Heung-min. 

We were on a pre-season camp in Austria, and it was a huge moment for me, because I was a 19-year-old kid who had been signed from HSV, and Leverkusen had paid almost 10 million euros for me. That was a lot for a teenager back then, and especially one who had just been on loan at Düsseldorf in the second division. I was really shy. I came into the cantina on the first day — and it’s really like the first day at a new school — you’re holding your tray full of food, and you’re just standing there all nervous, not knowing where you can sit. I probably stood there for 15 seconds, but it felt like 15 years. Finally, someone pointed me to an empty seat. I probably said five words that whole first lunch. 

And it’s weird because when you’re new, you want people to be like, “Oh, we’re so happy that you’re here.” But you quickly realise it doesn’t work like that in football. If they’re bringing you in, what you forget is that you’re always taking someone else’s chair. 

I even heard that some of the older guys were saying, “This kid doesn’t look that good ..... 10 million euros. Did they really pay that much for him?”

Anyway, this was just before Son signed for Tottenham. He was scary on the ball. It’s funny, we had this younger South Korean player at the time, and he had so much respect for Sonny that every time he would speak to him, or even just look at him, the kid would bow respectfully to Sonny. 

Like….

"Yes, sir. (Bow.) Yes."

Even if he asked him to pass the salt. 

"Yes, mister."

So I’m lining up for the one on ones, and of course, who is at the front of the line? 

Sonny. 

All of a sudden, he’s running at me with those quick feet, and Rudi Völler is watching, Roger Schmidt is watching ……. The whole team is watching. Son starts dribbling, and I stick a leg out. 

BAM. Right on the ball. Clean. Beautiful. 

I take the ball, I shoot and score. 

Second tackle, I win again. 

Third one, same. I don’t miss a challenge the entire session. Even when I attack, I pull off moves that I have never managed before. For a couple of seconds I look like Ronaldinho. And when I walk off the grass, I know it. 

They respect me now. They know why I’m here.

Rudi and Roger still talk about that session. Yes, I was nervous, but I had no fear. The secret was down to my mindset. 

I was ready. 

Once I had respect on the pitch, I won respect off it. I knew Hakan Çalhanoğlu from Hamburg, and I got to know Son as well before he left. Karim Bellarabi became like my big brother. Crazy guy. And I loved the mentality here, because nobody thought “Ah, we’ve made it, we’re at Leverkusen.”

They hated our nickname, Vizekusen. 

“Neverkusen.”

Always second. 

I hated it too. These were my guys. 

Things actually went so well for me that when I had a spell on the bench, I was shocked. It was in my second year with Peter Bosz, and it really surprised me because when he came in, I was his guy at the back. Suddenly he told me in a meeting, “Jona, you’re our fifth choice.”

Like yeah, you’ll play ..... if this guy gets injured …….. and this guy, and this guy. It’s not a nice feeling. 

But I didn’t go, “Ah, the coach is so s***, he doesn’t have a clue.” I focused on being ready for the moment when I’d get the chance.

You come on for two minutes? Put in the best two minutes of your life. 

Every gym session at six in the morning, when everyone’s asleep and you know you won’t play tomorrow, you’re killing it. The less I played, the more I actually trained, because I wasn’t tired from the weekend. Mentally, I grew so much. Self-pity or growth — you decide. And in the end, you can look yourself in the mirror and know you did everything you could to be on the pitch. 

I think that changed something in Peter Bosz too, because if I had started complaining, he would have thought, Yeah, I was right about him. 

That’s why those few months are my most important ones at Leverkusen. It always works out somehow. God has a plan. 

Even when you’re at the bottom, bad things happen for a reason. I remember in 2022 when we were second from bottom, like wow, really, really bad, and I had a chat with our coach, Gerardo Seoane. We both asked, “What can we do to change this?” He saw this potential in me as a leader, and he pushed me to get used to that role, which I always appreciate, but at this point we simply didn’t know what more to do. 

We tried everything. I mean literally, everything. We had a couple of players-only meetings. We tried to be serious. We tried to take the pressure off and bond by going out and having a few beers together. We tried every speech you could think of. Nothing worked. 

Again, it’s not like FIFA. Football is so complicated. Sometimes, everyone is trying everything, and giving everything, and it simply doesn’t work. 

One day Simon Rolfes came into the dressing room and said, “We’re going to bring in a new coach.”

Some of us cried, because we felt so bad for Gerardo, and we knew that it wasn’t about him. I called him up and said, “We’re so sorry.”

He said, “Don’t worry, I just hope you’ll figure it out.”

Then we heard rumours about Xabi Alonso. We knew he was still young as a coach, but we were all like, Ah, that would be really cool. And once he came in, we immediately noticed that he could still play for us. I’m serious, you could put Xabi into our team and he’d be just fine. There was a drill where we had to play long balls behind the defence to our wingbacks, and all of a sudden he stopped me. “No Jona, not like that.”

I honestly thought that I’d just played a pretty good pass, but he was like, “The ball has to be …… sharper.”

I was like, “What do you mean?”

He tried to explain, but then he said, “Here, give me the ball.”

He took a touch, turned and struck a diagonal cross that floated across to the other side, straight as an arrow. The ball landed on the shoe of one of our wingbacks, who didn’t even have to slow down to control it. Any amateur could have brought it down. 

Xabi turned to us. 

“ ….. that’s what I mean by sharper.”

I was like, You have to be joking. 

Even the sound the ball makes when he strikes it is different. Ping. You could turn away, listen to the ball and know it’s Xabi. 

I turned to my teammates and went, “How am I going to do that?”

And everyone just started laughing. None of us could do what Xabi did. 

I don’t think Xabi has gotten completely used to coaching. Deep down, he’s still a player. We would be doing passing drills and he’d be there next to us, making movements as if he was also part of the exercise. Seriously, you would see Xabi in the corner of your eye, opening up his body, ready for the pass, even though he was 15 metres away. If you played a good pass, he’d be like, “Yes, yes ..... yes! That’s it.” As if he just played the pass himself. 

When you see that you can make him that happy, you are happy, too. His passion is just crazy. 

I owe Xabi a lot, because he made me feel really important. I remember one of the first sessions we had with him, we were warming up, and he called me over, and you never know what a new coach will think about you. Maybe he’ll bench you, or even sell you. Maybe you’re not his kind of player. But he said, “I’m new here, and as a leader in the dressing room, I need you. I need you to push the guys, to transmit what I want from the team.”

I saw one video from Real Madrid where Carlo Ancelotti was doing exactly the same with another player, and I knew that Xabi had played at Madrid. It really made me feel special. 

One of the first things he told us was, “We have to work on defending crosses.”

Then he turned to me. 

“Jona …….. in the box, you’re the main guy.”

You know the goals where the striker hides behind you and then runs ahead to score? That can never happen. We worked so hard at following the man and the ball. Touching the striker so he knows we’re there, using the arm without making a foul. It’s an art. 

The other thing was positioning: How to open up the body so that you can control and pass the ball faster. The right distances to the ball. 

“Abre la cadera,” as Xabi would keep saying. 

Open up your hip. Find the triangles. 

Get the ball to Florian. 

That was always the goal, to find Florian in between the lines. Once we had that down, Xabi would find something else to work on. 

“OK, now let’s do long balls over the top.”

I loved that about Xabi. I always asked him, “What else can I do better?” And gosh, he helped me so much with the small details, stuff that you’d think is nothing special, but that when you add it all up, it changes a lot. 

When we won the title at home to Werder Bremen, I had one moment when the referee had blown the whistle, and everybody was running onto the pitch, and I pulled the shirt over my face ...... and for 10-15 seconds all the noise disappeared.

It was like one of those movie scenes where everything moves in slow motion, and you can suddenly think very clearly. You don’t hear or feel anything. You’re in a bubble, isolated from the outside world, and I remember that the season flashed before my eyes. Actually, my mind went back even further to when I was six years old in Hamburg, and my mom asked me if I could pick up my sister in kindergarten because she had to work. 

I was just a child, you know? We didn’t have a car, and my mom was in a desperate situation. She was a teacher in kindergarten, and she simply didn’t have time to go get her youngest child. I remember that she cried just from asking me to do it. But I found all the courage I could, went to the kindergarten, asked for my little sister, and took her hand. We walked through Altona, past all the people who were probably whispering, Where are their parents? I just stared right ahead, and then I guided her to our home and opened the door for her. 

When Mom came home, she cried again, partly out of guilt, and partly because she was so proud of me. And I was really proud, too. I genuinely think that’s how this whole journey started, because that was when I first became a leader. 

Everything that happens off the pitch has an influence on the pitch. 

After that memory, my mind flashed forward to my first training session and Son Heung-min. “What, 10 million for him?”

The time I was benched. The problems with Gerardo. 

The first chat with Xabi. 

All the games we had won and lost together, all the training sessions and team talks and video meetings. And now we were champions. 

Neverkusen was dead. 

And all I could think was, We did it. 

We really did it. 

And then the spell broke, and the noise came back, and everyone was jumping on me and hugging me. 

I think that moment showed me what it meant to me to win this title. It wasn’t just that I had won the Bundesliga. I had done it with this club, with this coach and these teammates. 

To all of you, thank you for sharing that moment with me. Thank you for being part of this incredible chapter in my life.

In the end, my wife was right, you know? 

It’s not only about football, but all the wonderful people you meet. 

It’s about the memories you make. 

The things you learn for life. 

All because of this beautiful game — football. 

Sincerely,

— Jona