EIGHT Bayer Leverkusen players pick up the lowest possible ratings from Bild as Bundesliga champions are savaged after 3-0 Europa League defeat… but how did Xabi Alonso fare?

Germany’s Bild has issued a damning assessment of Bayer Leverkusen’s performance in the Europa League final, with a whopping eight names achieving the worst possible score.

Bayer Leverkusen’s dream of an astonishing undefeated season in all competitions finally came to an end at the penultimate hurdle, with the Italian team winning the final 3-0.

It looked to be one of the final steps towards immortality for the Bundesliga champions, but it would be Charlton youth product Ademola Lookman’s night in the spotlight, with the forward scoring all three goals.

It was somewhat poetic for Lookman to be the master of Leverkusen’s demise, given his own bad spell in Germany. He scored five goals in 24 appearances for RB Leipzig in four years, in a period marked by loan moves at the club.

While Lookman had arguably the best night of his career, it was one to forget for Leverkusen, who saw more than half of their squad slam with 5/5 ratings.

Xabi Alonso’s team had committed itself to an invincible season across three competitions

The German champions were poor that evening and received no fewer than eight 5/5 ratings from Bild

The rating system for German outlets works the other way around than you might expect, with 1/5 being the highest possible and 5/5 being the worst.

As such, Bild handed out 5/5 seconds to Piero Hincapie, Exequiel Palacios, Granit Xhaka, Alejandro Grimaldo, Florian Wirtz, Amine Adli, Victor Boniface and manager Xabi Alonso.

Alonso raced in his first ever final and although he received almost universal acclaim this season, he could not escape the bad reviews on Wednesday.

“His first final as a coach was one of the most bitter evenings of his young coaching career,” the German outlet said of his performance at the Aviva Stadium.

“For the first time this season he failed to find a way to turn a game around.”

Similarly, star of the Leverkusen show Wirtz – who is widely regarded as one of the best attacking midfield talents in the world at the moment – posed ‘no threat’ during the match, according to Bild.

However, he did take credit for covering a team-high distance of 6.46 kilometers in the first half, and it is suggested that this defeat will teach him an important lesson.

Former Arsenal star Xhaka was also criticized for his performance, with Bild pointing out that this was his worst performance ever in terms of giving the ball away.

Alonso was ‘unable to find a way to turn the game around’, according to the German newspaper

Granit Xhaka lost the ball five times in the first half – the most times in his short career at Leverkusen

Florian Wirtz covered almost 6.5 km in the first half, but was ‘no threat’ in the 3-0 defeat

‘Twelve ball losses in the first half, a negative record for the Swiss in a Bayer jersey. He couldn’t prevent Lookman from scoring and making it 0-2.’

Similarly, midfield partner Palacios put in ‘an unusually weak performance’, Hincapie made ‘way too many mistakes’ and Adli looked ‘completely over-motivated’ in an overall poor performance from a side that has devoured all this in their path. season.

In fact, no player received better than a 4/5, with Adam Hlozek perhaps getting the best review, which simply said: ‘Good shot from distance that almost made it 1-3.’

Leverkusen still has the chance to remain unbeaten for the entire domestic season when they take on second division Kaiserslautern in the DFB Pokal final next week, but the chance to take an already special season into another stratosphere has now gone .