Bild offers a number of reasons why hiring Hjulmand would make total sense. The Danish former national coach has been without a team since his resignation in the summer of 2024 and could join Bayer Leverkusen straight away.
Hjulmand has extensive experience in dealing with world stars from 54 international matches and three tournaments (European Championships 2021 and 2024, World Cup 2022).
Hjulmand speaks perfect English as well as German, which is a main criterion for the Bayer management.
He prefers to play in a 3-4-2-1 system, which would be ideal for Bayer's top squad. In addition, he knows the Bundesliga inside out from his time as coach in Mainz (2014/15 season). At that time, Keld Bordinggard (62) was his assistant coach. Bordinggaard is now head of the coaching academy at Bayer.
The mood at Leverkusen is at an all-time low after the departure of Ten Hag, but the German media outlet says that Hjulmand is the perfect candidate to deal with a crisis after he handled the situation around Christian Eriksen's collapse at the European Championships in 2021 very delicately and was subsequently named "Leader of the Year" in Denmark.
In an interview with The Players' Tribune before the 2022 World Cup, Hjulmand said in relation to the exceptional situation around Eriksen: "Our culture was under pressure. Do we stick together? Do we all help each other? That was the test to show who we are. And I think we showed everyone and the whole world what kind of character the team has."
Hjulmand then sensationally led Denmark to the European Championship semi-finals, and he could be the right man to help Bayer Leverkusen back to the top of the Bundesliga, says Bild.