After poor start
This article first appeared on Oct. 5 and has been updated with new information.
Bayer Leverkusen’s season continued to go from bad to worse on Tuesday evening as they suffered yet another defeat, this time at the hands of Porto in the Champions League group stages. Not only did the 2-0 defeat at the hands of the Portuguese club leave the Bundesliga side in a precarious position in their group, but it also put the team’s defeats this season at a worrying eight from only their first 12 games in all competitions and has now resulted in Gerardo Seoane being released and replaced with Xabi Alonso.
Struggling in the Champions League and languishing in 17th position in the German top-flight simply isn’t good enough for a Leverkusen squad that is currently valued at €469.85 million and sits fourth in the Bundesliga behind only Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund. And as such, renewed calls to bring in a new head coach to replace the struggling Gerardo Seoane grew louder by the day with the club finally pulling the trigger on Wednesday evening.
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“The separation is not easy for us,” Bayer Leverkusen CEO Fernando Carro said via a statement released on Twitter on Wednesday. “However, in our current situation, we see no other option.” Leverkusen were somewhat reluctant to release Seoane as the club still believes that the Swiss coach has the potential to become a head coach but the results on the pitch left no doubts that the club needed a change.
Having previously been linked with an opening at Borussia Mönchengladbach last year, Alonso could prove to be a popular appointment but also potentially a rather risky one too. To date, the former Spain international has only coached in the youth teams at Real Madrid and Real Sociedad, guiding the B team of the latter in the Spanish second tier – a role he left in the summer of 2022. Which is hardly enough preparation for one of German football’s biggest clubs.
Former Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has reportedly turned down the opportunity to manage Bayer Leverkusen
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— Transfermarkt.co.uk (@TMuk_news) October 5, 2022
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