{"id":109199,"date":"2026-06-04T16:17:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/novell-joins-leverkusen-as-coach-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T16:17:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:17:03","slug":"novell-joins-leverkusen-as-coach-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/novell-joins-leverkusen-as-coach-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Novell joins Leverkusen as coach | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\">\n                                                                                            <strong class=\"location-names\"><br \/>\n                                        LONDON: <\/p>\n<p>        <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday announced the appointment of Spaniard\u00a0Carles\u00a0Martinez Novell as manager, replacing former coach Kasper\u00a0Hjulmand\u00a0with immediate effect.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>The appointment continues the instability in the club&#8217;s coaching ranks since the departure of double-winning manager\u00a0XabiAlonso at the end of the 2024-25 season.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>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<p>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&#8217;s sacking.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>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<p>Leverkusen sporting director Simon\u00a0Rolfes\u00a0praised Martinez Novell&#8217;s work with younger players and said he was the &#8220;best suited&#8221; coach to the next phase of the club&#8217;s development.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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,&#8221; he said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez Novell is set to speak at an introductory press conference on Friday.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON: 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&#8217;s coaching ranks since the departure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/img-65301780588423-0\/img-65301780588423-0-640x480.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}