The German side suffered their only defeat in 53 games the season in the Europa League final at the hands of Atalanta and the manager is adamant that he will learn lessons from the agony of missing out on football immortality.

Alonso told CNN: "It's football. The exception has been the 52 that we made. To deal with the defeat it's part of our job. It's not the first time, (and) it's not going to be the last time.

"I'm pretty sure I have the intuition that that game (against Atalanta) will make me a better coach, better manager than if we would have won the treble.

"For sure, those games you don't forget, and you can use that for the future.

"At the moment, it hurts so much, but I have that feeling that it will be more useful for my development than winning the treble."

Leverkusen did manage to go undefeated in the Bundesliga as they secured a first-ever league title success but Alonso admits that he and his players did not obsess over the run during the campaign.

He said: "In the team, (the talk) wasn't that much the unbeaten run, it was more like the spectacular numbers that we were doing.

"(From) all the media, there's this excitement of what's happening that (Leverkusen) are: 'One more game, one more game. 42, 43 and it continues.' So that adds some kind of pressure... We prefer to think about short goals than more in the long term."