If you ask a modern football fan to name the most impressive comeback they’ve witnessed, they might point to the 2019 Champions League semi-finals. Their parents might reference the 2005 Liverpool vs. AC Milan final. These are moments of greatness in football history, miracles perhaps. But does the last-minute comeback remain a miracle if it happens every game?
For the sheer quantity of matches rescued from the jaws of defeat, one could accuse Xabi Alonso, manager of Bayer Leverkusen, of witchcraft. The team’s 2023-24 season brought a new kind of comeback magic, stunning their opponents at the death with 17 goals scored past the 90th minute and 34 goals past the 80th, all to protect a 51-game unbeaten streak. Memes erupted across the internet as people could not believe just how many times Alonso’s side pulled off the injury-time feat.
It was becoming inevitable — no lead was safe. In the Europa League quarterfinal versus Qarabag, for example, Leverkusen striker Patrick Schick scored two goals in stoppage time (90+3’ and 90+7’), with his first leveling the game and his second sending his team to the next round.
When Alonso took the managing reins in October 2022, Leverkusen was a struggling team in the Bundesliga sitting at No. 17 in the table. The team inherited the nickname “Neverkusen” due to its longstanding title drought and its tendency to “bottle” trophies in the final stages of seasons. For example, in the 2001-02 season, Leverkusen finished with zero trophies out of a possible three — two back-to-back losses in the Bundesliga saw them slip to second which allowed Borussia Dortmund to win the title by one point. In the subsequent weeks, they would go on to lose the DFB Pokal and Champions League finals.
However, Alonso’s debut season pulled the team from a relegation risk to a No. 6 Bundesliga finish, securing a spot in the Europa League competition. In his second season, the “Neverkusen” label was struck out and replaced with “Leverkusen Never Losin” as they cultivated an identity as comeback artists, playing until the final whistle as if they had complete control over their fate. And, with each comeback win, they were able to bolster confidence that they could repeat the feat.
Through their utter quantity of comebacks, they redefined late-game resilience and, quite possibly, the role of psychology in football. This team lives out what psychologists call the “expectancy effect,” where the expectation of a positive outcome influences behavior to bring that outcome to life, a sort of scientific process of manifestation. Whenever Leverkusen falls behind, they don’t panic, they simply expect to pull off a comeback. And as the game clock ticks on, this tension only builds and the belief grows, creating the sense that their last-minute goals are in the script.
This kind of expectation is infectious, spreading the impact of this effect to their opponents. Just as Leverkusen’s players expect to turn games around, their opponents start to fear that they will. It’s a dance of confidence and caution, one that often leans in Leverkusen’s favor as opponents become worried about conceding and making defensive mishaps. And as we all know in sports, fear quickly turns to panic which turns into mistakes. And mistakes within a team are contagious.
This expectancy effect has transformed Leverkusen’s comebacks from flukes to habits. Each time they stage a dramatic turnaround, it reinforces their belief in this script. Momentum itself takes on new meaning, evolving from the rhythm of play within a game to a broader psychological force. As fans, we tend to think of momentum in terms of game phases: a great goal that incites energy, a perfectly timed tackle preventing a counter-attack, a defensive lapse triggering panic. But with Leverkusen, momentum becomes something layered across games and a whole season — a reputation for resilience that impacts every match.
Leverkusen’s relentlessness is part of a broader trend in modern football. There’s an old theory that a 2-0 lead is the “most dangerous” one, in that teams holding a 2-0 lead concede far more often than teams holding a one-goal lead. Sky Sports proved that historically this does not hold: since 1992, around 90 percent of teams with a 2-0 lead go on to win, while just 2.6 percent lose the game.
However, the statistics in the 2024-25 Premier League season so far show a different trend: the percentage of 2-0 leads overturned has reached a record high at 17.5 percent, up from just 8 percent two years ago. Perhaps this suggests that modern teams are more willing and capable of fighting back. Some argue that recent enforcements regarding time-wasting keep players moving, wearing down defenses late. Others credit improved conditioning, which lets players push beyond 90 minutes, as Leverkusen has done repeatedly. But realistically, the fitness of the players cannot be that much different than two years ago.
I think that Leverkusen’s remarkable season has sent waves through European football. Ignoring statistics, psychologically, when a team like Leverkusen is on the pitch, the fear of collapse weighs heavily on its opponents, impacting their play. While this is not quantifiable, I think other teams are starting to notice the psychological dominance the expectancy effect can have. As this expectation of Leverkusen’s success grows, it becomes a weapon, turning miracle comebacks into the everyday. In a game where comebacks are often seen as miracles, Leverkusen found the formula for such magic.
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