New coach Kasper Hjulmand is to again lift the newly formed Bayer 04 Leverkusen team at the title level. In Copenhagen, the Werkself wants to show that it is on the right track.
Kasper Hjulmand will not have a lot of opportunity to stop by on his former project. The Bayer 04 Leverkusen schedule and his coach around the Werkelf’s first Champions League game is very tight. “We built a national campus in Denmark to train the offspring”says Hjulmand, who is the project as “extremely important” describes for the Danish football.
That was also the reason why the 53-year-old did not hire at the factory club in summer. Because Hjulmand was already on the wish list of sports director Simon Rolfes before the great misunderstanding around the Dutch Ten Haag, which was already released after only a few weeks and two Bundesliga match days.
At that time there was no way out of this commitment. “If I promise something, then I also hold it”said Hjulmand. But when the request, everything went very quickly. He would have initiated all of this for no other club, he said.
Team is upset
On Thursday evening (September 18, 2025), the Dane will now be responsible for Bayer 04’s first game in the European premier class. In the stadium parking in Copenhagen, where he played a number of games as a national coach and where the current Wolfsburg Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest a little more than four years ago, the Leverkuseners will try to implement the ideas of the football teacher a second.
At Hjulmand’s premiere, against Eintracht Frankfurt that had already worked out well. After a big fight and two yellow-red cards, a 3-1 win jumped out. “As a team, we were closer together”said Alejandro Grimaldo. Hjulmand had done this under the Bayer Cross in his few hours.
Human component
“I ask hard discipline on and off the square “according to the coach: “But I don’t shout people. I don’t have to destroy people to show that I am a strong leader. For me, it’s about making things together. And support people around me so that they feel stronger.”
One of the reasons why those responsible for Rolfes and Bayer Managing Director Fernando Carro have chosen Hjulmand is the human component. The coach goes through as a kind of flagship machine: calm in its kind, considered in his choice of words, friendly in dealing.
Hjulmand must also win
Because Hjulmand has to do basic work in team building and tactical orientation with the all -round renewed Leverkusen squad (16 entrances, 15 departures). And that seems to be the right one. Hjulmand stands for possession of the ball, which the highly gifted Bayer team likes and should be. And the age of the players he uses is 23.4 years over his entire career. Youth players and their individual development is one of the premises of the coach.
The prerequisites are therefore available so that a new top team can form in Leverkusen. Because with all the sympathy of the club managers for the Danes: The success of the recent past have lust for more in the Rhineland. And Hjulmand has to meet this claim after a short familiarization phase.
A lot of quality
“It will be hard work, but the potential is great. There is so much talent here, so much quality, both for the experienced and young players”says Hjulmand: “And now it is up to us to find together to create a fantastic team on and off the square again. ”
In Copenhagen, the delicate reconstruction for Hjulmand and Bayer 04 Leverkusen continues.