New Bayer Leverkusen head coach Kasper Hjulmand: “I can’t wait to do everything I can to make Bayer Leverkusen a successful football team.”

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At his opening press conference, new Bayer Leverkusen head coach Kasper Hjulmand has spoke about his reasoning behind taking the job. 

After it was announced at the beginning of the week that he would replace Erik ten Hag, today he was officially unveiled as head coach. 

Hjulmand was the previous head coach of the Danish national team, but left last summer after their loss to Germany in the EURO 2024 round of 16. Since then, Hjulmand has been working alongside the Danish FA to build a football development system, similar to that which is currently in place in Frankfurt with the DFB. 

On leaving the project and ultimately joining Leverkusen, Hjulmand said:

“There’s only one club that could give me this feeling in a week, and that’s Leverkusen. I have a feeling that I can be myself. I don’t have to explain how I see football, how I want to work to get the expression on the pitch, how to play, how to win.”

When asked if he had spoken to some of the players, the Dane said (via @bayer04Xtra):

“I’ve also talked to to some of the players already. I called them up and we had a good talk, because it’s going to be hectic, only two days, then we play. So, I called some players up and talked to them. I’m excited. I’m looking forward to it. I’m very happy, and I can’t wait to do everything I can to make Bayer Leverkusen a successful football team.”

The one player that Hjulmand is familiar with is Jonas Hofmann. During the Dane’s brief spell with Mainz, 10 years ago, Hofmann was on loan at the 05ers from his then club Borussia Dortmund. 

The former Mainz head coach will face a challenge in trying to install his ideas into the squad; on top of this, Hjulmand gets no proper preseason either. On the challenge, he commented:

“I think it’s a big challenge, because in football, you need processes. You don’t just push a button, and then they play like you say, that’s not football. You have to work every day and create. I think I think it will be hard work, but I think the potential is a big. I think there’s so much talent, so much quality, both in experience, but also with young, talented players. And we are looking to make that work and make it tick, so suddenly it will hopefully explode. And we don’t know when. But up until that, we will play good minutes, we’ll have bad minutes, we’ll see if we can get more and more good minutes and make it work. And I think I’ve learned a lot with the national team as well, because you don’t have many training sessions – you know, we get in, we play two or three matches, 10 days – you have to be very precise with your minutes on the pitch, and that’s how it is right now. We have six games in a short time period, no training sessions really, only very, very few tactical training sessions. And then we learn from game to game. I think I learned a lot as a national team coach for that, because I don’t have pre-season, only games and short training sessions. I know what I will do, and I think I have the right experience to do it. So, I’m just looking forward to get started.”

Hjulmand will take charge of training later today with his first game in charge being on Friday at the BayArena against Eintracht Frankfurt. 

GGFN | Jack Meenan