The new trainer of Bayer Leverkusen
His last Bundesliga station ended after only 21 games
08.09.2025 – 5:36 p.m.Reading time: 3 min.
Kasper Hjulmand follows Erik Ten Hag. The Dane is supposed to bring Bayer Leverkusen back on track. He has a lot of experience for the task.
Kasper Hjulmand experienced his last game as a trainer in Germany against Germany. In the round of 16 of the European Football Championship, he failed with his selection in a competitive game in Dortmund Signal Iduna Park 0-2 on the DFB team. After the tournament, Hjulmand resigned, decided on a break. After a little more than a year, this has now ended. Hjulmand is the new head coach of Bayer Leverkusen.
The Dane now wants to try his luck around 60 kilometers as the crow flies of Dortmund and, with his ideas, want to correct the vice champion’s false start. After just one point from two games and a lot of internal restlessness, sports managing director Simon Rolfes decided to give Erik Ten Hag from his tasks and stop the human catcher Hjulmand as a successor.
Fernando Carro, chairman of the management, emphasized the human qualities of the 53-year-old: “In addition to the technically strong arguments as a trainer, Kasper Hjulmand’s principles of team leadership also convinced us. A newly compiled and capable of development as our needs and is benefited from the transparent, communicative and empathetic style of pitchers.”
Hjulmand is the first Danish head coach at Bayer Leverkusen. Bayer Leverkusen is not the first stop in Hjulmand in the Bundesliga. In summer 2014 he signed at Mainz 05, but an end in the Europa League qualification and a first round embarrassment in the DFB Cup put him under pressure early. A Bundesliga season start with eight games without defeat calmed the situation. The problem: In the following 13 games, only one victory followed, so Hjulmand had to go again in February 2015 after 24 competitive games, including 21 in the Bundesliga.
A bitter damper for the Danes, who had previously coached FC Nordsjaelland as the Danish champion. For him, however, it was clear to him that things should go back home. The reason for this was an incident about his brother Simon. Because he lived in a care facility for people with disabilities. However, another person died in that facility after being fixed on the bed by nurses. Hjulmand went public. “It is time for us to look at the situation of people with disabilities in Denmark,” he said. “Denmark signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to ensure that all people in Denmark, regardless of their disability, have the same ways to live a meaningful life.”