Florian Wirtz scored a hat-trick as Bayer Leverkusen romped to a 5-0 victory over Werder Bremen to clinch their first-ever Bundesliga title.
Victor Boniface had given the Die Werkself the lead, scoring a spot-kick in the 25th minute before four second-half goals sealed the victory and the German Bundesliga title for Bayer Leverkusen with five games to go.
Former Arsenal captain Granit Xhaka scored in the 60th minute before Florian Wirtz scored in the 68th, 83rd, and 90th minute to complete his hat-trick and sealed a thumping 5-0 victory that handed the Black and Reds their first-ever Bundesliga title.
Despite a strong presence in the German topflight, the North Rhine-Westphalia-based outfit have never won the German topflight. They have finished as runners-up five times in their history – 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2011.
In all the five occasions in which the Black and Reds have waged battle for the elite club trophy in Germany, the closest they had come was 2001/02 season when they lost the race to Borussia Dortmund by a point gap.
In Germany, they are the only team to have finished as runners-up five times without winning the competition but the deadlock has been broken now, and the feat has been accomplished in astonishing and brilliant fashion.
Under the tutelage of Xabi Alonso – one of the most promising young managers in Europe – the Die Werkself have successfully supplanted Bayern Munich‘s decade-long grip on the German topflight to emerge winners of the competition.
They aced the German topflight with an astonishing point gap (16) over their closest challengers Bayern Munich.
Bayern Munich had slashed the point margin to 13 to delay Leverkusen’s title celebrations but the win against Werder Bremen restored the 16-point gap with five matches left to wrap up the season.
As things stand, Xabi Alonso could extend his Bundesliga conquering campaign to Europe with Leverkusen closing on ending their 34 years wait for the European crown.
The Bundesliga champions edged out West Ham 2-0 in Europa League quarterfinal first leg in Germany and will hope to defend the win in England for a place in the last four of the tournament.
Also, the team is enroute to possible treble after they qualified for DFB-Pokal final where they will take on FC Kaiserslautern on May 25.
