Erik ten Hag had a nightmare debut in charge of Leverkusen after being thrashed 5-1 by Flamengo U20s in a friendly in Brazil.

Ten Hag, who was sacked as Manchester United manager last year, is set to take over as Leverkusen boss after Xabi Alonso left to take charge of Real Madrid.

The Dutch coach took his team to แทงบอล UFABET ราคาดีที่สุด ไม่มีขั้นต่ำ a training camp in Brazil and played their first friendly match against Flamengo’s Under-20s. Despite losing a number of key players this summer. The likes of Victor Boniface, Jonas Hofmann and Amin Adli are still available in attack. As is new goalkeeper Mark Flekken.

The result in Rio de Janeiro showed that Ten Hag’s Leverkusen had a terrible start to the pre-season. Being hammered 5-1 by Flamengo’s young team. With the only goal coming from 17-year-old winger Montrell Kulbreath, who came on as a substitute.

“The result looks bad, but I don’t really care about results in pre-season,” Ten Hag said after the game. “We should never lose, even by a large margin, but it was important to me not to lose any players. It would have been better to play the game later.

“The last 30 minutes were good, there were signs of things.”

Leverkusen will play four more warm-up matches, starting with Bochum on Sunday, July 27. Before facing Fortuna Sittard, Pisa and Chelsea. The 2025/26 Bundesliga season opens at home to Hoffenheim on Saturday, August 23.