Bayer Leverkusen are now in to 4/9 to win the Europa League ahead of their final meeting with Atalanta in Dublin, whilst Xabi Alonso's charges are 1/20 to win the DFB-Pokal as they prepare to face second-tier Kaiserslautern at the Olympiastadion in Berlin.
This quest to win two cup competitions comes on the back of Bayer securing their first Bundesliga title in their 119-year history.
Leverkusen, nicknamed 'Neverkusen' for the perpetual near misses on the trophy front, have finally ended their 31-year drought - and they still have two more trophies to play for.
Still unbeaten after 32 league games, Leverkusen are two away from a truly historic season, and are in to 1/3 with bet365 to go through the 34 matches of the 2023/24 Bundesliga campaign without defeat.
While no one has ever gone a full Bundesliga season undefeated, the longest unbeaten start to a campaign was Bayern Munich under Pep Guardiola, going 28 games without defeat, matching the longest unbeaten run within one season, set by Borussia Dortmund two years earlier.
Bayer finished second in the Bundesliga four times between 1997 and 2002, with the 2000 and 2002 seasons particularly hard to stomach, needing a draw against minnows Unterhaching on the final game of the season, only to lose 2-0, and then surrendering a five-point lead with three games to play two years later, in a campaign when they were a week away from a treble.
Having lost the title on the final day, they went 1-0 up in the DFB-Pokal final against Schalke, only to lose 4-2, and were then downed by Zinedine Zidane's wondergoal in the Champions League final.
They do have a DFB-Pokal honour from 1993, as well as a UEFA Cup from 1988, but since then have nine major runner-up finishes to their name.
Alonso took charge in October last year after a dismal start that saw Leverkusen battling relegation rather than competing for the European places. It’s always a gamble, hiring a coach who has no senior managerial experience to their name, but it has paid off for Leverkusen.
An excellent run of form in the five month from November through to April saw Leverkusen fly up the league; indeed, between 6th November and 23rd April, no side took more points than Alonso’s men, with a disappointing run of three points from their final five games denying them a Champions League place.
They even reached the semi-finals of the Europa League, being ousted 1-0 over two legs by Jose Mourinho’s Roma.
Despite losing top scorer Moussa Diaby to Aston Villa, they’ve been able to strengthen their squad, using the money to sign the likes of Granit Xhaka from Arsenal and Victor Boniface from Union Saint-Gilloise, the Nigerian leading the goalscoring charts with 10 in his first 16 Bundesliga games.
Of course, the grand irony would be that after so much heartache, Bayer win not one but two (or three) trophies in the same campaign.
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