Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday announced the appointment of Spaniard\u00a0Carles\u00a0Martinez Novell as manager, replacing former coach Kasper\u00a0Hjulmand\u00a0with immediate effect.<\/p>\n
The 42-year-old Martinez Novell, who stepped down as Toulouse coach at the end of the 2025-26 season, signed a deal running until 2028.<\/p>\n
The appointment continues the instability in the club’s coaching ranks since the departure of double-winning manager\u00a0XabiAlonso at the end of the 2024-25 season.<\/p>\n
Leverkusen appointed former Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag ahead of last season but the Dutchman lasted just two league games, before he was replaced by\u00a0Hjulmand.<\/p>\n
Hjulmand\u00a0initially steadied the ship but failed to guide Leverkusen back to the Champions League placings, with German media reporting the club already began looking for a successor during the season.<\/p>\n
German sports outlet Kicker had reported Leverkusen were in the final stages of striking a deal with former Bournemouth manager\u00a0Andoni\u00a0Iraola, but the Basque has since emerged as the leading candidate to take over the Liverpool job following Arne Slot’s sacking.<\/p>\n
Martinez Novell was assistant to Philippe\u00a0Montanier\u00a0when Toulouse won the French Cup in 2024, the first major trophy in their history, before taking over in the dugout.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard guided Toulouse to ninth in\u00a0Ligue\u00a01 this season along with a run to the semi-finals of the French Cup.<\/p>\n
Leverkusen sporting director Simon\u00a0Rolfes\u00a0praised Martinez Novell’s work with younger players and said he was the “best suited” coach to the next phase of the club’s development.<\/p>\n
“Carles\u00a0is a coach with clear principles and a modern idea of the game. We are convinced that he can provide the right impetus for our sporting future,” he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Martinez Novell is set to speak at an introductory press conference on Friday.<\/p>\n
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Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday announced the appointment of Spaniard\u00a0Carles\u00a0Martinez Novell as manager, replacing former coach Kasper\u00a0Hjulmand\u00a0with immediate effect. The 42-year-old Martinez Novell, who stepped down as Toulouse coach at the end of the 2025-26 season, signed a deal running until 2028. The appointment continues the instability in the club’s coaching ranks since the departure of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4434,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4429\/revisions\/4434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}