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As the club’s historic era comes to an end, with manager Xabi Alonso likely heading to Real Madrid, it’s time to look forward to the future for Bayer Leverkusen.
They look set to embark on a new journey under former Ajax and Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag.
With a squad average age of nearly 27 and several key players, like Jonathan Tah and Florian Wirtz, also linked with a summer move away from the club, it’s clear that the Leverkusen team will look different next season without Alonso and possibly a few others.
While they may need to reinvest in the squad to replace those who depart, they have a promising crop of players emerging from their youth ranks who could potentially get the opportunity to showcase their abilities, if not next season, then certainly in the near future.
In this Bayer Leverkusen scout report and player analysis, we will highlight five players who were part of their U19 team.
The Leverkusen U19 team fell short of winning the German championship in that age category following a 5-4 loss to Köln in the final at their own BayArena last weekend.
All but one of these players have already received first-team call-ups and matchday squad inclusions under Alonso, proving that the club does indeed hold them in high regard and are part of their future plans.
Ten Hag should consider these growing talents as he plans his Bayer Leverkusen rebuild.
Let’s learn more about them.
Andrea Natali Scouting Report
- Age: 17
- Position(s): CB/DM
The first player we’ll look at is Andrea Natali, the only one on our list who wasn’t part of the Leverkusen team that were runners-up in last year’s U17 German championship, having joined on a free transfer from Barcelona‘s youth academy last summer.
Natali was born in Milan, Italy, and played for his childhood club, AC Milan, until 2020, when he moved abroad to Espanyol.
He spent a year in their academy there before moving across town to Barcelona.
The 2008-born Italian defender spent a couple of years there before deciding to move to Leverkusen in the summer of 2024.
He’s been a mainstay in the German club’s U19 team since.
Natali is 6’1′ (186 cm) and weighs 169 lbs (77 kg).
He primarily operates as a centre-back, although he can also slot into defensive midfield if needed.
He’s a right-footed player who can play on either side of the central defence.
He is physically well-developed and possesses the technical skills to play the ball from the back with confidence.
His passing range is one of his biggest assets, as he’s capable of varying his approach depending on what’s required of him.
He can play it short to someone nearby to sustain possession or send a long diagonal to pick out a teammate making a run on either side.
The example above is a good illustration of his passing abilities from the U19 German playoff semi-final against Bayern Munich.
Natali starts in the centre of the field, just outside his own box, which is usually where the team’s main ball-playing centre-back is placed during the build-up phase.
After exchanging a couple of passes with the players near him, he eventually gets the ball back with time and space to make a decision as Bayern’s stand-off rather than pressuring high.
This gives him the room to dictate where he wants the ball to go next.
When he notices the run of the right-winger at the bottom of the graphic, Montrell Culbreath, into the space in front of him with Bayern underhanded on that flank, he does well to pick him out with a long diagonal from deep.
This ability in his locker is something that Leverkusen U19s utilise often.
Thus, they entrust him with taking care of the early stages of the build-up phase in possession when they decide to play it out from the back.
Natali is also good at positioning himself well defensively and reading the game before choosing his actions, whether to step up and close down the ball or drop off and mark his opponent instead.
However, one area he will need to improve, despite his well-rounded profile, is in physical duels, particularly those involving aerial play.
While he may have a good height for a defender, he sometimes finds it difficult to defend against physical opponents when dealing with crosses and set pieces.
The Köln final brought a good example of some of his struggles in this area, with the first goal for the eventual champions being highlighted here.
The moment captured in the image occurs immediately after the cross from the right, with Natali battling Köln’s striker, Youssoupha Niang, inside the six-yard box.
While Natali initially did well keeping up with Niang, as we can see there, Niang nudges Natali away slightly to create separation from him, with Natali on the wrong side of the forward and in a bad spot with the ball in mid-air.
Niang manages to get his header away, but without clean contact, before eventually scoring as the ball breaks back to him to start Köln’s comeback.
While this isn’t a glaring weakness in Natali’s game, it is one of those areas he needs to work on to become a centre-back who can play at the highest level.
By improving his physical defending and learning to outwit and out-battle the strikers he faces, he’ll have everything necessary to reach the very top of the game, minus the experience that comes with getting the reps by playing senior football.
Jeremiah Mensah Scouting Report
- Age: 17
- Position(s): AM/CM/CF
Perhaps the next player on our list has received the least mainstream attention of the five, but is another one quickly rising through the ranks in the club’s youth system.
That player is Jeremiah Mensah, a German-Ghanaian attacking midfielder who joined Leverkusen’s youth setup at the age of six in 2014.
While his primary position is a central attacking midfielder, he’s also comfortable playing in the centre of midfield as part of a trio or upfront in a centre-forward role.
After a blistering first half of the season with the U17 team, he was promoted fully to the U19 squad ahead of the campaign’s final stretch in March, with playoffs looming, where he also made an impact.
One of his hallmark traits, which has made him valuable to his team, is his instinctive runs into the final third from deep midfield.
He manages to find space in and around the opposition’s penalty area without being picked up by defenders.
This characteristic is what made him prolific with eight goals in 13 games for the U17s earlier in the season, and why he’s also capable of leading the line-up front, as it’s a quality mostly synonymous with strikers.
The example above is from the playoff semi-final against Bayern, where Mensah is seen making the run down the middle behind the centre-backs, who are inattentive to his presence as they are looking only towards the ball.
Artem Stepanov is making the run on that near side.
Eventually, Mensah received the pass just inside the penalty area, and the coolness and composure of his finish were evident as he clinically stuck the ball in the net for the equaliser.
Another example of his being the most advanced Leverkusen player in attack was in the Köln final, when he scored to double his side’s lead.
After initially laying his pass off back to Francis Onyeka (more on him later), he then turned towards the opposition goal and began timing his run into the box as the attack progressed down the right.
By the time the cross came into the box and a shot was being fired in from the left, as we see in the graphic, Mensah is all alone in front of goal, and when the shot ends up being saved and falling to his feet, he has the simple task of putting away the rebound to make it 2-0.
His attacking runs complement the Leverkusen midfield well and offer a fourth option in offence when they get the ball into the final third, which is a role he clearly grasps well with his intelligent movement and timing in his runs off the ball.
He has the football brain and instincts to progress further as an attacking midfielder.
Now, he’ll need the platform on the senior stage to showcase himself to the world and the promise he’s displayed in the U17 and U19 Bundesliga this year.
Francis Onyeka Scouting Report
- Age: 18
- Position(s): AM/CM/LW
Our next player is perhaps the one closest to making the step up to the first team, having featured in 19 matchday squads for Alonso’s side this season.
Of course, that is Francis Onyeka, who was born in a German town called Gummersbach and, like Mensah above, is also of West African descent with Nigerian roots.
Like Mensah, Onyeka is an attacking midfielder who can also function in a central midfield role.
He can also play out wide on the left wing.
Standing at 6’1″(186 cm), Onyeka is the engine room of this team in midfield and, unsurprisingly, is the player Alonso has called up the most, on various occasions over the last year.
Combining an impressive physical profile with proficient technical qualities and a difference-making ability in the final third, the 2024 German U17 Player of the Year has everything it takes to succeed at the senior level.
While he is an intelligent player who can play both low and high as a midfielder, depending on the situation, his offensive performance is what makes him a highly touted prospect.
Take, for example, this play late in the final game before the playoffs against Eintracht Frankfurt.
As his side looks to play out from the back, he takes up a deeper starting position just in front of the two midfielders, who are positioning themselves to receive the ball from the centre-back.
When one of them does receive it and carries the ball forward, Onyeka similarly moves forward to find a pocket of space, which can be seen in the next image below.
From here, Onyeka receives the ball early enough before being covered by opposing defenders and notices Stepanov’s run behind the Frankfurt defence, which isn’t set in its positioning.
Eventually, he plays an early pass to catch them off guard, which puts Stepanov clean through and results in the winning goal for his side.
It’s just a sample of Onyeka’s game as an attacking midfielder, with the timing of his movements and actions, ns, as well as his spatial awareness, ss, highlighted in a situation that led to direct positive results for Leverkusen U19s.
While he is a skilful playmaker, his knack for goal-scoring from midfield often catches the eye.
He netted nine times this year and was one of the team’s top scorers.
With his fair share of goals complementing the rest of his all-around attacking play, which is first-team ready in many ways, he is expected to make the full step up next season to a higher level, but like everyone else on this list, it is only a matter of where.
One thing that he could still work on, though, is his focus and concentration when making plays, particularly in a sensitive area of the pitch like central midfield.
This sequence in the playoff final, where he attempted to play a ball across the field with an opposing player nearby, proved costly.
The pass was cut out, and Köln went on to equalise from it.
Overall, Onyeka’s talent far outweighs any negatives he has, of which there are very few.
Equally, very few managers in elite football will tolerate such dangerous mistakes in a position like central midfield, where players are expected to protect the ball as well as deliver it to the attacking players.
So, to go on to become an elite-level midfielder himself, Onyeka could eliminate this from his game altogether.
Kerim Alajbegović Scouting Report
- Age: 17
- Position(s): LW/AM/RW
Next up, we have Kerim Alajbegović, a player who is also highly touted as one of the biggest 2007-born talents in European football.
Born in Köln, Alajbegović is a left-winger who can play all across the line behind a striker as an attacking midfielder or even a right-winger.
This is in part due to his ambidexterity, which enables him to play with both feet at a similar level of quality.
At 6’0′ (185 cm), the Bosnia & Herzegovina youth international is the heartbeat of the Leverkusen U19 attack, which is made clear by his impressive 16 goals and 12 assists this campaign in 32 appearances.
While he typically starts from a wide position, he rarely stays there.
He likes to roam freely across the attacking zones and get as involved in the action as possible.
A few things about Alajbegović’s game, in particular, make him an immense talent on this team.
Firstly, as mentioned, his movement off the ball is similar to that of a classic playmaker, despite his initial position as a winger.
This makes him a good example of a modern-day inverted winger or wide #10, similar to Neymar or Wirtz, his footballing idol.
The play below is from the same sequence that we examined for Mensah’s goal against Bayern, but this time, it highlights Alajbegović’s positioning in the lead-up.
Here, we can see Leverkusen’s basic structure in possession: a back three and two midfielders, while the right winger and left back provide width on either side of the three in attack.
One of those three here is Alajbegović, who positions himself in the half-space between the right back and right centre-back, who is quite deep here tracking Stepano.
This opens up room for Alajbegović to turn towards goal when receiving the ball.
This allows him to get the ball in positions where he can create dangerous opportunities for himself and his teammates, which he does here by providing the assist for Mensah’s goal.
With the left-back providing the width instead, he was given the license to invert into a more central area, where he’s at his best.
Another element in his game that makes him an interesting talent is his willingness to shoot from long range, often.
What makes him doubly interesting is that he is capable of shooting from such distances on both feet, similar to an Ousmané Dembélé in a sense, but with more finesse in his strikes.
We can use his goal in the final against Köln above as an example of that.
While it’s not the cleanest of strikes on his part and more of a goalkeeping error that it ended up in the back of the net, it still offers a glimpse into what kind of player Alajbegović is and where he looks to shoot from.
His combination of passing, dribbling, and shooting, combined with his two-footedness, makes him an exciting prospect.
Given his domination at the U19 level this year, the next step has to be senior football.
Whether he will be at Leverkusen or on loan elsewhere will be revealed this summer, but there are no doubt big plans for him at the club in the long term.
Artem Stepanov Scouting Report
- Age: 17
- Position(s): CF
Last but not least, we have young Ukrainian centre-forward Artem Stepanov to round out our list of talents to watch emerging at Leverkusen.
Stepanov arrived at the club in the summer of 2022 from Shakhtar Donetsk in the midst of the conflict in Ukraine and has developed and matured fast in the three years since, in every sense of the word.
After a prolific spell in the U17 team, where he netted 27 times in 47 games, he was promoted to the U19s this year along with his peers.
There, he’s continued his form with 23 goals in 29 games, proving that he’s outgrown youth football and is ready to test himself at the senior level.
Stepanov is a physically well-developed striker who stands 6’4′ (192 cm) tall and weighs 176 lbs (80 kg).
His size stands out amongst his peers, earning him comparisons to Erling Haaland and Dušan Vlahović.
While his goalscoring feats show that he is a clinical finisher, what he can offer when he isn’t putting the ball in the back of the net makes him an interesting player to follow.
One of his trademark moves is his ability to time his run and lose his defender.
He usually comes off the right centre-back or right-back before cutting in and shooting on his favoured right foot, although he’s also comfortable using his left when needed.
We can see that trait at work in the Bayern game early on, when he is spotted with his arm raised, looking for the ball to be played into him in the area he’s moving into by the left-back.
He knows that in a 1v1 situation, which he’d be in if he receives the ball where he wants it, he fancies himself against any defender at this level, given his physical gifts, making it difficult to stop.
Eventually, he receives the pass before holding up the ball and waiting for his teammates to come into play, which is another strength of his worth highlighting outside of what he does in the box.
In the same game, just moments after the previous examples, he shows another side to his game by, instead of running beyond the defender, creating separation from him as the ball is played long by his goalkeeper and coming short to try to hold up the ball.
This allows his teammates to move forward from their deep initial positions and join the attack in support, affording Leverkusen players time to shift their focus to offence.
He does well to fend off the defender and keep hold of the ball before playing it off to a teammate, who then initiates an attack in transition.
Stepanov is mature and composed on the footballing side of things for a striker of his profile, but he may still need some work on his mental side.
He can sometimes get frustrated or carried away, like in the playoffs against Mainz, when he received a second yellow for petulantly kicking the ball away after his side’s late winner.
Nonetheless, there is a fine centre-forward in the making here.
He has all the attributes needed to succeed as his career gets going now.
While the previously mentioned players on this list have their futures hanging in the balance, Stepanov does not, as he will join 2. Bundesliga club Nürnberg on loan for the 2025/2026 season, an opportunity to continue his development at a senior level, which he would struggle to find at Leverkusen, given the competition in his position with the likes of Patrik Schick and Victor Boniface still at the club.
However, if he can translate some of his form this season to the Zweite, he will undoubtedly be back at the BayArena before too long, donning the black-and-red Leverkusen strip.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this scouting report and player analysis shed some light on some of the top talents in Bayer 04 Leverkusen’s U19 team, who look set to be part of the club’s long-term plans potentially.
The current crop coming through at the club from the 2007 and 2008 generations seems very promising, given their performances at the U17 and U19 levels over the last two seasons.
While this list of players doesn’t include all those who have the potential to make it in the senior game, we do believe that these five have the highest potential ceilings and are held in the highest regard by the club themselves.
The first team may be operating at a high level now, but they will need replacing someday, and these five players could be a few of those to come in for those who make way in the coming seasons, with Ten Hag likely to keep a close eye on them.
