“Impressive sporting success”
Leverkusen presents the successor to Xabi Alonso
Updated on May 26, 2025 – 11:24 a.m.Reading time: 2 min.
Success coach Xabi Alonso leaves Leverkusen. There was a lot of speculation about a possible successor. Now the new Bayer coach has been determined.
Dutch Erik Ten Hag will be coaching at Bayer Leverkusen for the coming season. As the factory club announced, the 55-year-old follows success coach Xabi Alonso and receives a contract in the Rhineland until 2027.
From 2013 to 2015, Ten HAG was a trainer of Bayern Munich II, and internationally, he made a name for himself as a success coach by Ajax Amsterdam (2017 to 2022). As a Manchester United team manager, he went through more depths than heights from July 2022 despite the 2024 FA Cup victory. On October 28, 2024, he was released from the “Red Devils”. In Leverkusen he is the third Dutch head coach in the club’s history after Rinus Michels and Peter Bosz.
“With Erik Ten HAG we rely on an experienced trainer with impressive sporting success. His six title gains with Ajax Amsterdam were extraordinary. And also through the subsequent successes with Manchester United under sometimes difficult conditions, Erik has proven his class as a trainer,” said sports manager Simon Rolfes.
And further: “Our ideas of football coincide. With technically demanding and dominant football, we want to continue to act in the Werkelf style and strive in the Bundesliga, DFB Cup and Champions League.”
The new coach ten HAG described Leverkusen as a “best clubs in Germany”. In addition, the association “also belongs to the extended European elite. The club offers excellent conditions, the conversations with those responsible impressed me very much,” said Ten HAG: “I have come to Leverkusen to confirm the ambitions that have grown in recent years. It is an attractive task to build something together in this phase and to develop an ambitious team.”
Master coach Alonso leaves the Rhinelander and competes with Carlo Ancelotti’s legacy at his ex-club Real Madrid. The Spaniard CESC Fàbregas was recently traded as the successor in Leverkusen.