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Our next Get German Football News Bundesliga 2026/27 tactical preview takes us back to the realm of Germany’s red company team. Last year, Bayer Leverkusen constituted one half of the Bundesliga “XXL Umbruch” clubs looking to turn their fortunes around with a new coach and an almost entirely revamped roster. From a performance-based perspective, RB Leipzig certainly accomplished more than Leverkusen. That doesn’t mean that either club has stabilized, however. It’s funny enough to note that both Leipzig and Leverkusen axed their head coaches at the end of last season and are still dealing with more personnel turnover than an American fast food joint. The revolving door reigns at these two well financed clubs.
Leverkusen’s trainer switches maintain something of a “Goldilocks Feel” about them. Admittedly, the metaphor doesn’t fit precisely. Erik ten Hag’s flagrant denunciations of club management consign him to the “too cold” category. Kasper Hjulmand, whose sometimes near comatose demeanor left most wondering if the Danish trainer’s pulse needed to be checked, remained far from anything one might consider as being “too hot”. Enter Carles Martinez Novell, a Catalan who wildly gesticulates and gestures emphatically during squad training sessions. So commences a thinly-veiled attempt to return to the “Xabi Alonso Spirit”.
Who is Carles Martinez Novell? Certainly not the next Xabi Alonso. Mercifully, he’s also not someone to be confused with the next Albert Riera. Leverkusen management brought in a figure who can excite a tad more by virtue of the fact that he has hot blood pumping through his veins. Hjulmand and ten Hag might as well have been reptilian, albeit for very different reasons. We’ve gone from Spaniard to Dutchman to Dane and back to Spaniard in the space of 12 months in an effort to give this club an identity again. Martinez must find a way to engage Germans with this club. That’s quite the task!
Bayer 04 Leverkusen
Martinez arrives without any real grand expectations of turning this team around right away. The roster remains largely built for the future. Many more comings and goings over the course of the summer underscore the fact that this transition phase is far from over. The author also questions his own decision to cover this club so early. All the moving personnel components render projecting the lineup exceedingly difficult. Alejandro Grimaldo cannot be replaced on a like-for-like basis. The re-tooling of the attack leaves one with more questions than answers. The absurd amount of wealth Leverkusen lord over also means they can splurge on the transfer market any time they wish to.
As is always the case with Leverkusen, we don’t really know how all the ins-and-outs will shape the final squad. Moreover, it can effectively be treated as a given that die Werkself will have outspent most of their Bundesliga counterparts by the time the summer window is out. It’s a virtual guarantee that the bullet proof managerial duo of Simon Rolfes and Fernando Carro shall outspend everyone else in January. The author must tread a little carefully here lest his “Bundesliga purist voice” dominate the narrative too much. It’s certainly no secret that, despite the fact that Bayer have a devoted traditional fan base deserving of full respect, most Germans don’t care to follow Leverkusen too closely.
Bayer are simply an über-rich company club.
Does anyone like the mansion-dwelling neighbors who set the neighborhood standard for wealth and comfort? Maybe one doesn’t necessarily hate them or let jealousy dominate one’s thoughts. The family newsletter that arrives every Christmas still grates a tad. No one truly likes a reminder that the dad working for the pharmaceutical giant ensures that his children get more presents every year. Yes, we’ll cover what sits under the B04 gift-wrap. No, it doesn’t have to be the most enthusiastic coverage.
Major personnel shifts, Leverkusen
Estimated Summer Transfer Balance = +€11.35m
One German footballing journalist, whose anonymity shall be protected, assessed Carles Martinez’s appointment as “an unsensational, yet exciting, choice.” With that in mind, we’ll…hey wait a second…eh…what? Sometimes we German journalists remain so eager to give those assigned to this club the benefit of the doubt that we unconsciously ignore such formulations. In this instance, the author must wonder aloud what that means. As painful as it may have been to watch this team struggle under ten Hag and Hjulmand, that’s no excuse for failing to at least try and fire the creative synapses in one’s own head! Don’t let Leverkusen put you to sleep intellectually. It can happen all too easily.
We shall see what sort of trainer Martinez proves to be. Rolfes and the B04 administrative team literally spared no expense in ensuring that he’s got a great bunch of actors to work with. Facundo Medina and Miguel Gutierrez technically give the new head coach two potential replacements for Grimaldo. Afonso Moreira shores up the left attacking flank. Assuming the semi-stalled Moussa Diaby deal goes through, Martinez shall receive another fabulous option on the right. Kerim Alajbegovic’s “easy come, easy go trick” is, of course, fairly irrelevant. One could say that club management lined their coffers. Trust the author on this one, however. No “coffer lining” is needed here.
No one will miss Alajbegovic as he never truly arrived in the first place. The same applies to Piero Hincapie (sold after being loaned out last season) and the ridiculous amount of prospects parked in developmental locales for future use. The loaned out players being too numerous to mention in one solitary paragraph, the author will simply note that Francis Onyeka, Luca Erlein, Abdoulaye Faye, Noah Mbamba, and Issa Traoré are all top quality talents who may become household names. Did the author just break his own stated rule and list them all anyway? Not exactly. There are others. There’s truly “an embarrassment of riches” at this club in more ways than one.
The author definitely overextended the theme there.
Let’s move on.
If there is some criticism to be leveled about the summer transfer window, Rolfes and the squad planners didn’t really invest much time in seeing to the right wingback situation. Brazilian Arthur and veteran Lucas Vasquez made it evident last year that this area required quite a bit of improvement. Rather than addressing this on a personnel level, it actually looks to be the case that the new coaching regime will solve it tactically. It counts as highly likely that Martinez will deploy a back four.
Notes from pre-season, Leverkusen
There was no Rio trip for die Werkself this year, unfortunately. Instead, it all got started in Baumberg just south of Düsseldorf. Just days into training, a fairly slow-moving incarnation of die Werkself made short work of their fifth tier opponent. A 4-2-3-1 spearheaded by Christian Kofane secured a 3-0 lead before halftime. Moreira bagged a brace before the break. Robin Andrich and Nathan Tella got into the act after the change of ends. So too (in all seriousness) did perpetually maligned striker Victor Boniface. Moreira’s finishes (a clinical header and an impressive solo run and finish) stuck in the mind.
A few heads began to turn in the second friendly against Kickers Offenbach when Boniface again impressed in a 3-1 victory. Plenty of spectators were on hand to watch a thoroughly enjoyable match that even featured the Bundesliga favorites falling behind early before three unanswered goals from Christian Kofane, Jonas Hofmann, and Afonso Moreira. Kofane looked super slick on a number of plays. Boniface dribbled with elegant agility and was selfless in setting up his teammates. Moreira and midfielder Ezequiel Fernandez nearly added another goal late. All eventually clicked seamlessly in a 4-1-4-1/4-2-3-1 hybrid.
Before July was out, die Werkself hosted a very early home stadium exhibition next to the BayArena, shutting out guests Genk 4-0. This one was particularly noteworthy in that Bayer were still without most of their World Cup stars. That didn’t stop returning loanee Jeanuël Belocian from polishing off a sumptuous Edmond Tapsoba through ball in the 9th-minute and Nathan Tella from doubling the advantage just before the half was out. Moreira (brutally awesome in this one) got his own well-deserved goal and also set up Kofane’s 4-0 in the second half. This time, Martinez definitely had them line up in a 4-1-4-1.
One thing Martinez consistently did, something novel and cool in the author’s opinion, was keep his presumed best XI on the pitch after the change of ends. Knowledge such as this enables one to dispense with all the hot air surrounding this new trainer. Martinez clearly wants to hit the ground running and find his best XI as soon as the rubber meets the road. This was also evident in the 3-0 win over Rot-Weiss Essen. World Cup players Patrik Schick and Ibrahim Maza were immediately thrown into the XI upon their return. They both scored inside of 23 minutes.
Counter pressing and build up play through the middle again looked strong in the RWE friendly. Exciting B04 prospect Montrell Culbreath added the third goal in the 79th-minute after some inaccuracies and legginess were beginning to foul up the Bayer game. It nevertheless proved another very strong performance. Hofmann, Fernandez, and Moreira again stood out even though they didn’t score their own goals. This time the 4-2-3-1 remained in place throughout, though there were times when it looked more like a 4-3-3.
Martinez’s troops were finally back in the BayArena for a hard test against Sevilla one week later. This time, over 25,000 fans turned out to watch the match live. A Schick brace helped the home team come from behind and dig out a 2-1 victory. A 4-1-4-1 (with Fernandez and Aleix Garcia rotating into the deep solo six slot) took a little while to get rolling, but ultimately settled into a rhythm. The forward play generally proved optically sound. Moreira had his first “off match”, though he was involved in plenty of the more promising forward pushes.
The newly signed Miguel Gutierrez helped set up Schick’s goal not long after being subbed on in the 63rd-minute. Martin Terrier assisted Schick’s second 11 minutes from time. Though there were some coordination (and plenty of synchronization) issues on the rotations, the match looked to be a real confidence booster for the team. In the absolute antithesis of what we saw with Union Berlin, the Leverkusen front office crew demonstrated how to properly stagger a pre-season schedule. At least, that’s what it looked like until we got to the Forest match.
A highly rotated squad fell to Forest 1-2 at City Ground this midweek. Martinez started the likes of Terrier, Ernest Poku, and Malik Tillman – perhaps in the interest of showcasing some for outgoing transfers. There would be no come-from-behind victory this time. Fernandez again looked good in assisting Schick’s equalizer. Some of the players Martinez used regularly in pre-season (notably Lucas Vasquez and Jeanuël Belocian, both of whom are transfer candidates) didn’t turn in good performances. Unfortunately, their use might have hurt Leverkusen’s chances of offloading them.
Maza, Tillman, and the previously spotless Fernandez had their problems as well in the Forest loss. Moreira (who definitely should have played from the start) experienced another dip. Hofmann, Aleix Garcia, Tapsoba, and Kofane were all ineffective off the bench. Martinez’s XI didn’t quite make sense, particularly when it had hitherto appeared as if he wanted to find his best XI as soon as possible. One assumes that the best will begin from the start this weekend against Newcastle. New signing Medina will definitely be an interesting watch.
Winners from camp, Leverkusen
Victor Boniface, CF
Some of the more astute readers may have noticed the paucity of jokes in the above section. In the author’s defense, he had to save more than a few for the first player covered here. Victor Boniface. Seriously. No typo. Victor Boniface?!? The striker who ruminated on “moon and bread not sharing the same WIFI”?! It appears the 25-year-old has opted to trade the “word salad” for some actual salad. Good on him. There’s still plenty of work for him to do in order to shave his paunch down and get his touch back, but few (if any) could have predicted we’d be seriously including him in any sort of footballing-related discussion based on where we were a few months ago.
Boniface looks like Victor Boniface again, or at least some recognizable approximation of him. The Offenbach performance counted as the more interesting one. Boniface looked light on his feet, maneuvered through tight spaces with the old elegance, worked back defensively, and, perhaps most encouragingly, didn’t spend the match desperately attempting to prove that Victor Boniface remains important. He instead played teammates in and helped manufacture both second-half goals. True, he did fade back into obscurity after the first two friendlies. At least he’s not (to the author’s knowledge) fading back into some sort of head trip.
The bit about being aware of his teammates remains important. The Bremen version of Boniface often appeared determined to solve everything himself. Horst Steffen famously criticized him for drifting all over the pitch rather than simply occupying the striker position. An actual Bundesliga comeback? Probably not. The author can’t see Boniface displacing Schick and Kofane. Moreover, no sensible Bundesliga club could possibly be persuaded to take him on loan at this point. Maybe we’ll get nothing more than weeks of failed Serie A medical stories. Even that would be an improvement on the forced coverage from last season, however. Good grief!
Afonso Moreira, LW
Phenomenal. Full stop. Well, perhaps not quite. Moreira spent most of pre-season looking like the sort of player Leverkusen can simply pluck off another rich club’s roster and immediately turn into a Bundesliga nuisance. The 21-year-old opened his account with two very different finishes against Baumberg, struck again against Offenbach, then terrorized Genk with perhaps his best performance of the summer. A goal and an assist hardly told the whole story. Moreira attacked space aggressively, changed direction without sacrificing speed, and generally made the left flank look like the easiest position on the pitch to play.
The Sevilla and Forest matches supplied the necessary dose of reality. Moreira finally looked mortal against the Spaniards and dipped again after entering against Forest. Fine. Bundesliga fans will take it. The larger takeaway remains unchanged: Leverkusen appear to have acquired a winger capable of giving Martinez genuine width, directness, and one-on-one threat immediately. Given how much tactical clutter this squad presently contains, having one attacker whose instructions can essentially amount to “go left and cause problems” counts as a blessing. The author rather likes him.
Nathan Tella, RW
The former makeshift right wingback may finally get his preferred position thanks to a strong pre-season, but a move seems more likely. He scored against Baumberg, added another against Genk, and generally reminded observers that his best football comes when he can run directly at defenders rather than worry about fulfilling wingback responsibilities behind them. The pace remains obvious. So too does the verticality. Tella looks like a useful Bundesliga attacker again rather than an emergency tactical solution. Whether or not he can hang around is by no means a foregone conclusion.
Unfortunately for him, Leverkusen possess roughly enough wide attackers to populate a small nation. Moreira has surged, Diaby may yet arrive, and several other expensive options remain on the books. Good camp from the Nigerian. Very nice work from him. Still probably no clear path to regular starts. Sometimes winning pre-season simply means giving the transfer department stronger evidence that somebody else should pay for you. Leverkusen have no real need to sell, but will probably do so anyway.
Jonas Hofmann, RW
Has Jonas Hofmann finally found a trainer willing to make proper use of him again? Three successive coaching spells left the veteran looking increasingly like an expensive relic, yet Martinez has repeatedly restored him to attacking midfield roles in which his intelligence matters more than whatever pace remains in the legs. Hofmann moved the ball quickly and consistently helped connect midfield with the front line during Leverkusen’s better preseason performances. At 34, no one should expect a renaissance of Gladbach-era proportions, but there remains a very serviceable Bundesliga player here.
Ezequiel Fernandez, DM
Is it too early to hope that Exequiel Palacios and this pre-season gem share a midfield axis? The pairing of the two names operating side by side rings awfully cool. The “Ezequiel/Exequiel Double Six”? Sold! Fernández spent most of the summer making the footballing case for a place in the XI. Palacios’ eventual return will obviously complicate matters, but Fernández has done more than enough to ensure that the established Argentine doesn’t simply walk back into an uncontested role. In a squad overflowing with expensive attacking toys, the relatively understated Fernández might wind up being one of the summer’s more important discoveries.
The name pairing works.
The midfield pairing might work even better.
Losers from camp, Leverkusen
Malik Tillman, ATTM
Ahem. The interview. Enough said within that hyperlink, really. Tillman spent much of last season proving this author wrong after receiving some admittedly premature criticism in the previous pre-season column. By winter, the German-American looked considerably more confident, more tactically versatile, and far more capable of imposing himself on Bundesliga matches than the shy youngster remembered from Bayern. There were goals, some genuinely strong performances, and eventually even an apology from this chronicler. Fine. Credit where due.
The problem is that this summer hasn’t exactly strengthened the case for another glowing reassessment. Tillman looked disjointed against Forest and presently finds himself surrounded by enough attacking competition to make the interview even more ill-advised. Tillman has already demonstrated that he belongs at this level. Now comes the less glamorous task of demonstrating that again under another trainer, amid another tactical reset, while several teammates are enjoying considerably better summers. Note that the author absolutely loved reminding USMNT fans that Tillman was as German as it gets during the World Cup.
Here’s hoping he remains in the Bundesliga!
Montrell Culbreath, RW
A damn shame about the injury. Montrell Culbreath looked ready to use this pre-season as the springboard toward a much larger first-team role. The teenager brought pace, directness, and a willingness to attack defenders whenever Martinez used him, then added the third goal against Rot-Weiss Essen after coming on late. That finish felt less like a random preseason tally than confirmation that Culbreath was beginning to make himself difficult to ignore. Unfortunately, getting noticed at Leverkusen is only half the battle.
This remains a squad overloaded with wide attackers, senior options, and developmental projects all fighting for the same handful of minutes. Culbreath therefore needed every healthy week he could get. The injury interrupts precisely the sort of momentum that might have pushed him into Martinez’s immediate rotation and, at a club this deep, even a brief absence can send a youngster several places backward in the queue. Luckily, this 18-year-old German-American has more than enough time. One hopes he won’t get loaned out as part of the “Leverkusen rich investment” plan.
Let him remain in the Bundesliga too.
Kennet Eichhorn, CM
There’s been some troubling medical news when it comes to this 17-year-old mega talent. Even the author learned a new German word this summer when he was forced to look up “Stoffwechselstörung”. Having contrasted the translations available on various online medical dictionaries, he still has no idea what’s going on. In any event, this sounds like something very stressful and unpleasant for one of Germany’s top young talents to be going through. Absolutely no one should rush him back to the pitch.
Get well soon, Kennet!
Lucas Vasquez, RWB
Time for retirement? Not necessarily. The 35-year-old still demonstrated that he’s got plenty of spunk left, even if his dynamism and defensive recovery have diminished somewhat. It just doesn’t appear as if there’s room for him. With Bayer seemingly intent on solving the flank structurally through a back four rather than continuing to force another makeshift wingback experiment, Vasquez increasingly looks like a relic from a tactical idea the club has already abandoned. It does remain the case that most of us are happy to have him in the Bundesliga.
Robert Andrich, CM
Oh captain, poor captain. Andrich really drew the short straw when Erik ten Hag named him squad captain. The armband came just as Leverkusen entered another season of upheaval, and the 31-year-old now finds himself carrying symbolic responsibility without anything resembling a guaranteed place in Martinez’s midfield. Ezequiel Fernández enjoyed an excellent pre-season, Aleix García offers cleaner circulation, Ezequiel Palacios will eventually return, and Andrich did little in the Forest defeat to force his way ahead of them. Now neither Frankfurt nor Union seem to want him.
Ugh.
Sad stuff.
Tactical Scout, Leverkusen
To quote Jeffrey Lebowski himself, here we have a complicated case featuring a “lot of ins and a lot of outs”. Much will become clearer after the Newcastle friendly this weekend. The author confesses he wishes to get this section done due to his desire to watch other teams play over the next couple of days. No, that may not be the most responsible thing to do when it comes to the second (behind Bayern) most valuable roster in the league. Alas, we’ll be doing it anyway. We simply have to keep moving.
To illustrate just how difficult it is to forecast at this stage, consider the fact that one of the projected starters (Jarell Quansah) hasn’t even seen a minute of pre-season action just yet. Moreover, whoever starts on the right flank remains a complete mystery at this point. Presumably, Martinez’s next choice at that position shall be little other than a placeholder for Moussa Diaby anyway. In that sense, it almost doesn’t matter at all who the author pencils in there. We’ll learn much more about this team soon enough.
For now, we can at least probably project the Newcastle lineup.
Thirty minutes on the whiteboard at the local library making this happen:
Lineup–B04 (PROJECTED)
Tempting as it was to build a more straightforward 4-3-3 or 4-1-4-1, this simple 4-2-3-1 seemed the safer bet. Hofmann indeed serves as the safest placeholder for Diaby. One of the biggest surprises of the pre-season saw Aleix Garcia deployed as high up as the No. 8 position frequently. Somehow, the author intuitively senses he’ll slide back to familiar territory in order to give Ibrahim Maza more space.
At right back, Vasquez’s more forward deployments in the test fixtures – combined with some underwhelming performances from Arthur – lead to Tim Oermann getting a trial opposite the more forward minded Gutierrez. If those two are to learn how to coordinate, now would be a fabulous time. In this set-up, the team retains a nice tidy spine down the center whilst allowing for plenty of improvisation on the wings.
Martinez receives the benefit of a “controlled reset”, something his two predecessors certainly didn’t get. To his immense credit, the new trainer also utilized his time over the summer exceptionally well, figuring out a way to shake things up with a few new ideas before the (relatively) older guard came back. It should all work out rather well provided all the names stay in their lanes off the ball and keep their marking assignments in mind.
We could see Martinez fight an old school English 4-3-3 with his own, but the attack will run into the same problems it did against Forest if the link-up play isn’t supported. Furthermore, the Fernandez midfield experiment showed the limitations of having only one six available to pull the strings. Something like this adds extra coverage in the midfield duels without sacrificing the potential of the counter too much.
A “Vizemeister” place for Germany’s red company team? Not out of the question at all. That happens to be something these Rhinelanders specialize in. Germans mostly specialize in giving this club the cold shoulder. That did shift dramatically when Xabi gave this team something that couldn’t be bought: A sense of identity.
That task now falls to Carles Martinez.
Make Leverkusen interesting. That’s the task.
They don’t even have to be all that good, just interesting if possible.
