LEVERKUSEN, Germany (AP) — Bayer Leverkusen’s excellent begin to the season has rivals taking discover.
Bayern Munich coach Thomas Tuchel, whose group is the one different one to have began the Bundesliga with three wins, says Leverkusen might even problem his Bavarian powerhouse for the title.
For that to occur, a lot is dependent upon Jeremie Frimpong, a defender who has began each Leverkusen recreation this season and already arrange three objectives within the Bundesliga. He additionally scored in each the league and German Cup.
Dashing up and down the proper flank in a wing-back function, Frimpong is a key a part of the eye-catching fashion coach Xabi Alonso favors at Leverkusen. It took the group to the Europa League semifinals final season and has produced 11 objectives in three Bundesliga video games to this point.
The goal is to “hold the hearth burning” this season, Frimpong instructed The Related Press in a latest interview. Leverkusen’s latest type has raised expectations about what the group can obtain this season. Subsequent up is a conflict with 11-time defending champion Bayern in Munich on Sept. 15.
Leverkusen has a close-knit, formidable younger squad. Half of the 20 gamers Alonso has used this season are aged 23 or youthful, together with the 22-year-old Frimpong, promising midfielder Florian Wirtz and ahead Victor Boniface. They’re led in midfield by the expertise of Granit Xhaka, newly signed from Arsenal, however misplaced Moussa Diaby to Aston Villa within the low season.
The chemistry between the formidable younger gamers within the group is a consider Leverkusen’s rise, Frimpong stated. Since arriving from Scottish champion Celtic in 2021, he believes he is turn out to be a extra harmful attacking menace, utilizing his tempo on the proper flank to overwhelm groups. He has a aim and three assists this season already.
“I improved yearly I feel, particularly in my finish product,” he stated. “After I was at Celtic, I used to be getting up there and I might not end the actions. That is one factor I had to enhance on my recreation, as a result of what is the level if you happen to go all the best way up there and you do not end it?”
His quest to enhance has even included experiments with modeling his working fashion — which already produced formidable tempo — on Olympic sprinters.
It is Alonso’s first teaching job with a membership’s first group after working with reserve and youth squads in Spain. Frimpong says Alonso’s document as a participant at golf equipment similar to Liverpool, Actual Madrid and Bayern, together with the Spanish nationwide group, is a robust inspiration.
“You have to respect him as a result of he is been there and carried out it. He is gained all the things, Champions League and World Cup,” Frimpong stated. “As a footballer, that is what you need to win, and naturally, to have a supervisor like we have now, we’re very grateful as effectively. And he is aware of the way to use the group. He is aware of our skills, our weaknesses.”
Leverkusen had one other enhance Monday when defender Edmond Tapsoba signed a five-year contract extension.
Frimpong was born in Amsterdam however grew up in Manchester, the place he got here via Manchester Metropolis’s youth system however by no means performed a senior recreation for the English champion. A transfer to Scotland with Celtic in 2019 on the age of 18 confirmed how remoted the lifetime of a soccer star could be.
“All that was new to me,” he stated. “Waking as much as seven of my siblings to waking up alone once I was in Glasgow, that was completely different, that was very troublesome.”
Frimpong goals to emulate Alonso’s achievements within the Champions League and the World Cup, however his profession with the Netherlands nationwide group has but to get going. Frimpong was within the Dutch World Cup squad final yr in Qatar however did not get a recreation. He hasn’t been chosen since by coach Ronald Koeman.
Requested if he feels he is been given a good shot with the Netherlands he stated: “I simply give it my all, give it my finest. What I can do is simply converse on the pitch, give it my all, after which we’ll go from there.”
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