Bayer 04 Leverkusen - A Familiar Face

Bayer Leverkusen have today sacked their manager Sami Hyypia after the former Finland international had a training ground bust up with three of the clubs players. Hyypia, who joined the club as manager in 2012 and managed to lead the club into the champions league, was reportedly furious with some of the clubs summer transfer business, including the signing of Son Heung-Min and the departure of Dani Carvajal, and heated arguments were building between Hyypia and players Bernd Leno, Son Heung-Min and Sidney Sam, with reports going round that the former Liverpool defender swung a punch at each of those three players. 39 year old Hyypia is expected to take up legal proceedings against Leverkusen with the former defender standing his ground over the fact he did not attempt to punch any players and is considering using the legal proceedings to try and get his job back too. Chairman Michael Schade was at the BayArena today addressing the situation, and had this to say, “The actions of Mr Hyypia were totally unacceptable and myself and the board felt that as soon as we heard about the incident, we had to take immediate action because to be quite honest, the players Mr Hyypia attacked could have taken legal proceedings against him for assault. This is something which will harm the clubs reputation and we will now be looking for someone to come into the club, and be able to lead us to European qualification again. We have a fantastic group of players here and it would be hard to turn down the opportunity to work with them as they are all exceptional talents and hopefully our new manager can help us with our long term project.” Names such as Jurgen Klinsmann, the legendary German striker who is now in charge of the United States national team has been strongly linked with a mood to managing the club, as well as names such as Marcelo Bielsa, Marcello Lippi and Louis Van Gaal have been thrown around to join the managerial hot seat at the BayArena. It is expected an announcement on the new manager will be made in the coming weeks, and with the list of names being tipped for the job, it looks a really promising project going on in Germany.

Damn! I liked Hyypia!:( Good luck mate!:)

Good luck with Bayern Hyypia was never one of my preferred players/managers anyway. Looking forward to the new appointment!

Nice start!! Excited to see who the next manager will be. Bielsa would be a right coup!

New manager is not someone you would think of off the top of your head. I think its a good choice but thanks:) New appointment will be done soon

Next Manager Michael Ballack ?

Bayer Leverkusen have today unveiled the clubs former midfielder Bernd Schneider as the new manager, and it comes as a big shock to Leverkusen fans as the former Germany international has no managerial or coaching experience whatsoever. Schneider, who won 81 caps for Germany, scoring 4 goals, has had brief roles involved in football since retiring from football with Bayer Leverkusen in 2009, taking up and advisory role with first club Jena, and a scouting role with Leverkusen. The 39 year old has joined the club on a 1 year contract worth around £30,500 per week, and has recently told friends he would like to stay on at the club beyond the end of his contract if the board agree to extend it at the end of the season.

Schneider had a brilliant career in his playing days, starting his career at Jena in 1991, where he made 158 appearances and scored 21 goals. He then moved to Frankfurt in 1998, playing 33 games and scoring 4 goals. In 1999, Schneider, who had just started to make his breakout in the football world then moved to Bayer Leverkusen, where he became a club legend making 263 games appearances scoring 35 goals. He retired in 2009 after being pushed out of the clubs first team and revealed he has no qualms with the club in a recent interview with Sky Sports News.

“Yeah, when I retired in 2009 it was because I was not getting enough first team football and I had been relegated to Leverkusen II. I needed to be playing football and at the time I wasn’t, so I chose to retire because I knew it would be hard to find a club at my age. I have nothing against the club after being dropped from the first team and I hope that I can lead the club to success and be here for years to come."

Shocker Can't say I heard of him before but good luck to him!

2014-02-20 19:42#162435 DeanByrne1995 : Shocker Can't say I heard of him before but good luck to him!

Can't blame you for not hearing of him, but playing fifa 06 and 07 as the German national team he was beast