After Jurgen Klopp announced his shock Liverpool resignation, many expected Bayer Leverkusen head coach Xabi Alonso to answer the Reds' call and take the reins at Anfield from 2024-25 onwards.
Instead, the 2005 Champions League winner will be manning the opposition touchline on Tuesday evening, when the Bundesliga holders and Arne Slot's side square off in the league phase of the Champions League.
The Reds have won each of their opening three games of the 2024-25 edition and are second in the 36-team league phase table, only trailing Aston Villa, while Leverkusen have accrued seven points from their opening three affairs to occupy sixth place in the standings.
Here, Sports Mole takes an in-depth look at the head-to-head record and previous meetings between the two sides.
© Imago
Head-to-head record
Previous meetings: 4
Liverpool wins: 3
Draws: 0
B. Leverkusen wins: 1
Alonso's current and former employers have only crossed paths on four occasions - all of which have come in the Champions League - and the Merseyside outfit have prevailed on three occasions while only succumbing to one defeat.
Tuesday's league phase tie will be the first meeting between Liverpool and Leverkusen for some 19-and-a-half years, as their previous most recent contest came back in the 2004-05 tournament, where they clashed in a two-legged last-16 battle.
Alonso was not available for either of those matches for Liverpool - he had his ankle broken by Frank Lampard earlier in the year - but Rafael Benitez's men still strode to a 6-2 aggregate victory with a pair of 3-1 victories.
Luis Garcia, John Arne Riise and Dietmar Hamann were on target in the first leg at Anfield, but Franca managed a last-gasp consolation for Leverkusen during the days of away goals actually meaning something.
The German side could not build on that lifeline a couple of weeks later, though, as Garcia was on target twice more in the second leg in Germany, before Milan Baros made the result even more emphatic for the 2004-05 champions.
Prior to locking horns in the Miracle of Istanbul year, Liverpool and Leverkusen's inaugural competitive meetings occurred in the 2001-02 quarter-finals, where a solitary Sami Hyypia effort was enough to propel the Reds to a 1-0 first-leg win.
However, Liverpool's defence was found wanting in the second leg, when Michael Ballack scored twice and Dimitar Berbatov also got in on the act in a 4-2 triumph for Leverkusen, who went on to lose to Real Madrid in the final.
Abel Xavier and Jari Litmanen were responsible for Liverpool's consolation efforts that day, and Garcia is unsurprisingly the leading scorer in this head-to-head with three strikes to his name in 2005.
Previous meetings:
Mar 09, 2005: Bayer Leverkusen 1-3 Liverpool (Champions League Last-16 Second Leg)
Feb 22, 2005: Liverpool 3-1 Bayer Leverkusen (Champions League Last-16 First Leg)
Apr 09, 2002: Bayer Leverkusen 4-2 Liverpool (Champions League Quarter-Finals Second Leg)
Apr 03, 2002: Liverpool 1-0 Bayer Leverkusen (Champions League Quarter-Finals First Leg)
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