The Bayer Necessity: Malik Tillman at Bayer Leverkusen

Yes, I don’t rate Terzic’s coaching chops at all.
Also, ten Hag took a team deep in the CL as well (semifinals, but still).

 

Pellegrino Matarazzo

 

You should immediately call Bayer with this hot take.

 

Meanwhile Tillman just keeps scoring!

...a PK goal in a friendly v. Vicky Cologne...

https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bunde...vazquez-and-equi-fernandez-warm-to-task-33908

 

New Bayer Leverkusen manager chosen. Kasper Hjulmand. Looks like his last role was the manager of Denmark during the Euros.

Hoping for the best for him and more importantly Malik.

 

New teammates, with five Champions League titles between them!​

 

After the 22WC and Berhalter's first departure, Hjulmand was a name that came up in the "Next Coach" thread of the time. He was one of maybe a half dozen or so coaches I did a deeper dive into, and if my memory is correct (I could search for my post on him, but....ufff doing that right now....ok, fine this is my first post about Hjulmand) he had a real standout record, doing well to very well at every stop in his career.

 

University of North Florida in Jacksonville. I actually saw him play for them, I assume, as I attended a few games the season he was there.

 

All negative €30 million of it. They had the 3rd-lowest net spend (or 3rd-highest profit, depending on how you want to look at it) in the league this summer.

 

Tillman starts! Bayer Leverkusen hosting Eintracht Frankfurt (Brown on the bench). My schematic shows a 3-4-2-1, with Tillman front left.

Schick

Tillman ======== Tella

Grimaldo = Andrich = Palacios = Vazquez​

 

Brown on the bench for Frankfurt

 

Brown entered in the 10th minute. Must have been an injury.

 

Active first half for Malik defensively.

Was played a good pass into the box but shanked a left foot shot from left side. He will need to adjust to how fast the defense attacks him in the BuLi.

 

Tillman is taken off in the 61' with the score at 2-1 after Leverkusen picks up a red card.

 

I see that Leverkusen hung on for dear life and won, 3-1, despite going down a second man (late, in stoppage time, but there was a lot of that). They'll be short both Andrich and Fernandez for at least the next league match.

Next up: Champions League @ Copenhagen on Thursday.

 

Who’s managing Leverkusen now?

 

I'd say it was a 6/10 for Tillman.

This was a very up-tempo game, with neither side really having spells of possession. Leverkusen pressured high up the pitch and looked to break with pace whenever they won possession. So not many passing sequences.

Tillman did a fair bit of pressuring and tracking runs but not a whole lot on attack.

His moments going forward:

About a third of the way through the first half he received the ball in the center circle and quickly played a forward diagonal to the right to Tella making a run. It was nothing special but it was the correct play and was properly weighted so Tella was able to run at the defenders and create a quarter-chance for himself.

@ ~30 min mark as the ball was being pinged around the upper middle of Frankfurt's half he successfully shielded and let run through a ball that I think would've been intercepted, which a couple touches later resulted in a good chance from the top of the box for his team.

@ ~34 minutes Schick did some hold up inside the 18 yard box and played it back to Tillman who was ~20 yards out in on the center right hand side of the box. Tillman's shooting lane was being closed down on both sides. He took the shot which was deflected out for a corner which resulted in nothing. The special play would've been to shift the ball to his left foot and slide over a yard to create a shooting lane or draw a foul from the defender tracking back.

@ ~43 minutes the ball was played to him inside his left hand side of the 18 yard box on the break and he took a shot with his left foot from about 8 yards out even with the left side of the 6 yard box and missed 2 yards wide.

His passing was functional but the story of the game was that Frankfurt found it hard to play through Leverkusen's pressure, so unless his manager was expecting more out of him in the attack I assume he mostly did his job. Tella was a lot more influential in the attack than he was but just because two players are lined up in similar positions doesn't mean they have the same role.

As an aside for all the people crying this summer about Gio's sprinting (or lack thereof), there were a couple times where Leverkusen were breaking 3 v 4 and if Tillman had sprinted he could've joined in but instead he jogged along 15-20 yards behind the play. He also had a chance to start a break carrying the ball through midfield and made Gio look quick..

 

I sorta assumed that was a tactical choice because of how consistently it was happening, but I also agree with the rest, 6/10 is fair

 

Oh yeah, I forgot that. He seemed to be a pretty good coach, good luck to him.

 

Comparing Tillman with Gio is silly.

You watched a different match than I did. Tillman is coming back from a calf injury that kept him out for most of preseason and the first couple of matches. He was limited to 61 minutes his first match and around the same today. Despite that he is averaging 12.5 sprints per match and 62 intensive runs per match in only 62 minutes. I could make a joke "did Gio do 62 intensive runs in total all last season much less per match?" but that would be piling on

See: https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/player/malik-tillman

FotMob gave him a 6.9, WS a 6.5 which seems fair. One thing is clear; Malik will have to adjust to the increased speed of play from his opponents at the BuLi level. You can see that everything is just happening faster on offense and defense. You can already see him making the adjustments.

Highlights for those who did not see the match.

 

Tillman has come a long ways since his Gers days and he covered a good bit of ground at PSV. He's never going to be BA or Dest, but if he trailing the play when it seems he should be running, it's likely it's intentional rather than lazy.

 

https://www.kicker.de/schock-fuer-l...ahresende-aus-1145948/artikel#google_vignette

Tillman an option at the double 6 with Palacios out and Andrich/Fernandez red cards

 

https://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/match/2045919--copenhagen-vs-leverkusen/

Starts in their CL opener