Warm-up match was humiliated by U20 team s 5 goals! Tenghahleverkusen s first nightmare starts with coaching

Dutch coach Eric Tenghach, who just took over the coaching point of the Bundesliga powerhouse Leverkusen, encountered a nightmare coaching start. In a pre-season warm-up match on July 19, Leverkusen unexpectedly lost to the U20 echelon of Brazil's Flamengo Club with a huge difference of 1-5.

This is the first time that Tenghach has returned to coaching since he was fired by Manchester United in October 2024. He took over Leverkusen this summer and shouldered the important task of continuing his predecessor, Xavi Alonso. However, the team's first warm-up trip to Brazil began with a shocking defeat.

Although Tenhach sent six first-team players, including forward Victor Bonifas and new goalkeeper Mark Fleken, Leverkusen fell out in just two minutes of the opening game. What's worse is that less than ten minutes into the opening game, Artur's own goal quickly put the team in a 0-2 lag. In the

game, Tenghach adopted a strategy of large-scale rotation every 30 minutes, clearly putting the player's physical fitness recovery above the game results. However, the scene is still out of control. Mattus Gonsalves and Pedro Leon's goals put Leverkusen behind by 0-4 at the end of the half. Just ten minutes into the second half, Gustavo won another goal and rewritten the score to 0-5.

It was not until this time that after Tenhach replaced the main players such as Edmund Tapsoba, Alejandro Grimaldo, Patrick Hick, Nathan Tra and Granit Zaka, Leverkusen gradually stabilized his position and controlled the rhythm of the game. The goal to save face came from 17-year-old young winger Montreal Courbres, who scored his first official goal of his career in the 70th minute. After the game, facing this shameful defeat, Tenghach tried to downplay the impact of the results: "The score looks bad, but I don't care about the results of the preseason at all. Of course we shouldn't lose, especially if we lose the big score. But for me, the most important thing is that no player was injured. If this friendly match was scheduled later, the situation might be better." He changed the subject and pointed out the positive side, "The team performed well in the last 30 minutes, and we saw some positive signs."