Former captain of Finland Sami Hyypiä to coach Bayer Leverkusen

[emezico]

Former captain of Finland's football team, Sami Hyypiä, is to take charge of Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen. Hyypiä has been part of Leverkusen's coaching staff since he retired last year, and has now been promoted to 'team chief', with junior coach Sascha Lewandowski officially acting as 'coach'.

The club decided to sack previous coach Robin Dutt after just nine months in the job following a 2-0 defeat at home to Freiburg on Saturday. The loss was their fourth defeat in a row.

Lewandowski will officially be in charge, as he has the required licence to act as head coach, and Hyypiä does not.

"I know the team," said Hyypiä, who retired last season after two years at Leverkusen. "I believe in this team. We want to show an insecure team.... the way to get back to success."

Leverkusen announced that Hyypiä and Lewandowski will remain in charge 'at least' until the end of the season. The decision to fire Dutt was taken as the club looked in danger of falling out of the race for a place in Europe.

"We just had to act and show a sign that would give our season target of playing internationally a new push," said the club's Managing Director Wolfgang Holzhaeuser.

Hyypiä played 105 times for Finland in an international career spanning 18 years. He also won the Champions League in 2005 while at Liverpool.


Yle, Reuters