Why is everyone obsessed with pre-season wins? It is not the 90s anymore, teams build chemistry on tours like these. Leverkusen's whole identity has shifted. Alonso is gone, Wirtz is gone (good luck replacing 57 chances and 82 dribbles!), and now Ten Hag walks in with headlines: “Title or bust, but here is a bunch of U23s and maybe no Xhaka.”
Can Flekken push Hradecky out, or is the captain untouchable? If Boniface and Schick do not hit, does Tillman turn into a "goal-scoring 10" or just another lost-in-transition signing? And who covers when the CB depth is thinner than ever?
Bayern can steal captains until they are blue in the face, but Leverkusen still has Palacios, Tapsoba and a front line with actual stricker. Provided the Ajax spirit of Ten Hag appears (not the Man United one), this team can maintain top 3, particularly when the new kids can gel quickly. The pre-season is only the trailer, mate. The true drama begins when the Bundesliga becomes real, and then we will know whether the strategic pivot of Leverkusen is genius or self-destruction
There is literally no other data available for anything so those games are the only things that we can see. Obviously they are not going to give you 100% of the situation, because most of the time even youth players play, and people who won't even be around or sold could be playing, none of those means anything at all.
What we are seeing however is the first glimpse, like how they will try to play, a formation, a strategy, any tactic we can, because that's what we are going to have to end up with. If you can do that, then you are going to be happy to see "something", instead of nothing. What are we suppose to do if not for watch friendlies? Watch the training? So friendlies and tours are great way to get the first glimpse somehow, and then first weeks of the league is even better.