XABI ALONSO has undoubtedly developed into the hottest young coach in world football.
But could he be about to make the very big step up as the next Liverpool manager?
Jurgen Klopp stunned the Premier League by announcing his shock exit from Anfield at the end of the season.
Alonso immediately emerged as the early favourite to succeed him in the dugout - and it is not hard to see why.
The former Spain maestro only took over the German side Bayer Leverkusen in October 2022, with the club in a relegation battle.
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Now they are flying high at top of the Bundesliga, leaving Bayern Munich in their wake.
However, looking at the league table only tells part of the story with Leverkusen also being one of the most exciting and progressive sides in European football.
Having played under the likes of Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and Rafa Benitez, there is no doubt Alonso enjoyed a second-to-none education enhanced by his natural curiosity for the finer details.
After hanging up his boots Alonso took his first job coaching Real Sociedad B in Spain's lower leagues, far away from the media spotlight.
He eventually signed for Leverkusen early in last season with a project to rebuild their campaign.
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Little more than a year later and Leverkusen are one of the most interesting teams in the game with not only an incredibly incisive attack but a solid and well-put-together defence.
Despite being relatively young and inexperienced as a coach, the narrative now is that Alonso will be the first choice for whichever super club parts ways with their coach first - and that proved to be Liverpool.
Though that does not mean Alonso will jump at the first offer should the Reds come calling.
We have already seen him remain patient as he waited for the right opportunity and that raises a few interesting questions.
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Would a return to Merseyside be the right opportunity and next step?
Is this the ideal situation for Liverpool?
Klopp will certainly go down as one of the most successful and popular coaches in the club's history but, when he leaves, Liverpool fans will be heavily in favour of appointing a coach who has such a strong connection to the club.
Alonso played 210 times for the Reds, scoring 19 goals, and winning four trophies - including that famous Champions League triumph in 2005, in which he scored.
Klopp, when he was at Mainz and Dortmund, and Alonso share a proactive approach to their coaching, with both favouring attacking football at tempo and connection to their players.
However, Alonso is better at creating a dominant attacking structure than Klopp was when he first moved to England.
So far this season at Leverkusen have used their advanced midfielders and wing-backs to really push forward and occupy more advanced attacking spaces.
Leverkusen create a lot of danger in possession with the way they move players into high positions early, as they look to stretch the width of the pitch.
This forces the opposition to defend in a wider structure and creates space centrally for their advanced midfielders to exploit.
One of the flaws in this current Liverpool system - for all the Prem leaders have impressed so far this season - is they are sometimes too slow to push midfield players into more advanced areas since moving to a ball-dominant system.
This is despite Liverpool having moved on from a more functional midfield with the likes of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson departing.
One of the other key tactical concepts behind Alonso's Leverkusen team has been the way they set up out of possession and defend with aggression in transition.
Leverkusen press and counter press aggressively in an attempt to win the ball back as close to the opposition goal as possible.
For this to work at Leverkusen, Alonso has made use of pace in the attack and in the wide areas.
Alonso likes his team to control possession but also to have the option of using pace to quickly attack space behind the opposition’s defensive line.
Finally, Alonso has set Leverkusen up is the way they play in a compact style in possession.
This means the central defenders and wingbacks move extremely high in the attacking phase to force the opposition back which in turn allows the central midfielders to move into attacking positions.
This then allows the central midfielders to move into more advanced attacking positions.
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