Simon Rolfes

But th- though I think the good thing about Leverkusen is they understood what they were as a club.

If we're talking about what a club's identity is about, and knowing, knowing your place actually, for want, want of a better phrase, they never started thinking, "Right, we're gonna compete with Bayern every season." But what they did last season, they went through such an immense amount of change, and I think Simon Rolfes, the sporting director, would say, like, he's, he's...

would quite honestly say, "We made mistakes during that." So they sold nearly €300 million worth of players, but they appointed the wrong coach initially in Erik ten Hag.

They appointed someone in Casper Hu- Hjulmand, who, eh, could have... m- more or less could have got them there, but the performances in the f- the second half of the season, so the first half of 2026, were really below par.

I think you do have to look at it in the context of how much changed.

But I, I spoke to Simon Rolfes after their friendly in, um, Newcastle, like, a couple of weeks ago, and he was saying, "Yeah, this summer's just been a lot more calm."

[laughs]

"We've been able to, like, take a breath." I think part of that is appointing Carlos Martinez as coach nice and early.