Xabi Alonso Remains a World-Class Proposition for Bayern Munich

Despite turning 35 in a little over two months, Xabi Alonso has proved as crucial as ever to Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich since they kicked off the 2016/17 campaign with a resounding 6-0 victory over SV Werder Bremen in August.

Before the start of the season, Alonso's previous goal for his current club had come in a routine 3-1 victory over the now-relegated Hannover 96 back in March 2015.

"My duty is to be risk averse," the Spanish midfielder was quoted as saying by the Guardian's Simon Hughes earlier this month. "For my game to be better, I need to be surrounded by better players than me. My game is not to have one great action. My game is to be consistent throughout: to bring the ball in the best and quickest possible way for the best players to make the last action."

Bayern laboured to victory against Ingolstadt on Saturday, conceding their first goal of the season when Dario Lezcano squeezed the ball through Manuel Neuer's legs early on.

Thomas Muller, Philipp Lahm and David Alaba being struck down by gastroenteritis in the run-up to the game did not help the Reds' cause, but they rebounded quickly at their Allianz Arena with Robert Lewandowski restoring parity.

However, it was not until Alonso took matters into his own hands five minutes after the restart that Bayern scored their crucial second goal, with the 3-1 win subsequently secured by Brazilian full-back Rafinha in the 84th minute.

Alonso's thumping effort from outside of the box left Ingolstadt goalkeeper Orjan Nyland with no chance. It was also his second tally in three games, and—incredibly—not even his best strike in recent weeks after his goal-of-the-season contender to kick off the scoring in the opening-day rout of Bremen.

Alonso has always been a cerebral player, dictating the game from deep. There were a few eyebrows raised when Pep Guardiola initially brought him to Bavaria from Real Madrid in the summer of 2014, though, with the player not far away from his 33rd birthday at the time.

Matthias Schrader/Associated Press

Perhaps more surprising is that new coach Carlo Ancelotti has immediately entrusted the former Spain international with central midfield responsibilities a little more than two years later.

But for the 5-0 Champions League victory over FC Rostov last Tuesday, Alonso has featured for more minutes than Arturo Vidal, a Copa America Centenario winner with Chile this summer; Renato Sanches, the UEFA Euro 2016 champion with Portugal who signed for €35 million from Benfica; and Thiago Alcantara, a current Spain international nearly 10 years his junior.

A firm friend of recently retired Arsenal midfielder Mikel Arteta growing up, Alonso broke through at Real Sociedad before embarking on an illustrious career that includes Champions League victories with Liverpool and Real Madrid as well as a FIFA World Cup win with Spain in 2010.

Perhaps at his physical peak when Liverpool stunned AC Milan to fight back from three-goals down to win Europe's flagship competition in Istanbul in 2005, Alonso has nonetheless always tried to find extra space using his head rather than his legs.

"We practised passing a lot," he told Guillem Balague, looking back on his formative footballing years with brother Mikel, as quoted by Liverpool's official website in 2008. "I guess that's where we learned to be midfielders. Our games were about passing the ball, not so much kicking it at the goal. We played to hit the bar or stones, games that strengthened our precision."

Ball retention is a philosophy that Alonso has held dear throughout his career. He set a Bundesliga record for number of touches when Bayern beat Cologne in September 2014, treating the ball as his own with some 204 connections in a 2-0 win, as reported by Bild (in German).

However, a curious stat for Bayern coaches and fans alike is the fact that Alonso, with 87, had fewer touches of the ball against Ingolstadt than both Rafinha (102) and Vidal (88). That pair also outpassed Alonso, as did Joshua Kimmich and Javi Martinez.

Where many midfielders drop deeper as their careers progress—see Paul Scholes at Manchester United or Alonso's former colleague Steven Gerrard with Liverpool—it seems Alonso is becoming happier to let others do the donkey work, allowing him to shine when it matters most.

Each of Alonso's goals this season has been scored with the player lurking unmarked just outside of the opponents' box, a good 20 metres further forward from where he normally operates.

Not that Ancelotti is worried. "I have a lot of confidence in Alonso," the Italian told Munich newspaper Tz (in German). "Alonso is the type of player I like, maybe because I played in this position myself. He is technically and tactically strong, and he is a team player. I like a team player."

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Alonso remains a willing worker. Despite coming off after an hour in the recent victories over Bremen and then Schalke, Alonso still had more passes than five cohorts who played for more minutes than he did.

"[Passing] has never been the hard part for me," Alonso is quoted as saying by Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl. "But maybe I couldn't position myself as well as I do now."

Indeed, only last season's top goalscorer, Lewandowski, has scored more goals for Bayern than the veteran Basque Spaniard, and if he can help steer Bayern to Champions League glory this season, he would become just the second player after Clarence Seedorf to win the competition with three different clubs.

Alonso has already been crucial in helping Ancelotti become the first Bayern coach since Otto Rehhagel in 1995 to win his first six games as coach.

If he can keep up his happy recent habit of scoring wonder-goals alongside his well-honed ability to distribute in the mean time, Alonso might find that when he next ponders who those "better players" might be, he looks around the Bayern dressing room and finds that they are rather thin on the ground.