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Sami Hyypia steps into management

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King Binny

King Binny

Part of the Furniture
Honorary Member
Babel, Hamann and now Hyypia, albeit temporarily.

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Sami Hyypia has been placed in temporary charge of Bayer Leverkusen after Robin Dutt was sacked following a fifth consecutive loss.

The former Liverpool defender will work alongside Under 19 coach Sascha Lewandowski until the end of the season.

Leverkusen sporting director Rudi Voeller and managing director Wolfgang Holzhaeuser lost patience with the Dutt after Saturday's 2-0 loss at home to Freiburg.

Leverkusen lie sixth in the Bundesliga on goal difference and are fighting for a Europa League place.
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"With Hyypia and Lewandowski in charge, we want to turn things around and resume right away," sporting director Rudi Voeller said. "The team now has to step up and show some responsibility.

"Bayer are better than this and we must aim higher."

Hyypia retired from playing last summer in order to study for his coaching badges at Bayer, who he joined from Liverpool in 2009.

He now has his UEFA A-license and feels he is ready to make the step into management.

"I know the team and firmly believe in it," he said. "We - Sascha Lewandowski and I - want to show Bayer Leverkusen how to get back on track.

"It is an unsettled team that has not taken its chances in recent weeks. But, having been at the club for the past three years, I have an advantage in that I know the players."
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Sami coming to manage us in the future would be just superb, I really hope it happens. Maybe in 4-5 years time after he's managed to prove himself. Good luck to him.
 
I can't see him enjoying the media side of it, but he's a clever man and I hope he really does well.
 
When Robin Dutt’s rollercoaster tenure of Bayer Leverkusen eventually came to its premature conclusion, it was fitting that it should do so following a dispiriting 2-0 home defeat to his former club. It carried with it the implication that Dutt, who had worked such wonders at Freiburg, was in some way unprepared for the more elevated heights of the Bundesliga elite.

For the men who terminated his contract, this was, in the words of chairman Wolfgang Holzhäuser “the most difficult of these kind of decisions that we have had to make in our time here.” Dutt had been the man. The central figure in a watertight plan to push Leverkusen forward in both the Bundesliga and in Europe.

In the Bundesliga, though, even ideal candidates are never guaranteed more than a few months’ grace. Dutt, the sixth Bundesliga manager to be fired this season (and seventh if you count Markus Babbel), had not, by any stretch of the imagination, had a catastrophic season. His team, despite a poor run of form, were fighting for a Europa League place, and had beaten Valencia to the Champions League knockout stage. And yet he betrayed no sense of indignation at his dismissal. In his expressions and words there was only a sense of fatigue and resignation – a miserable acceptance that it was always going to end like this.

It was a reaction which his interim replacement, Sami Hyypiä, would do well to remember as he embarks upon his coaching career. The former Liverpool defender, who has taken over the vacant reigns at Leverkusen along with Under 19 coach Sascha Lewandowski, has seen his arrival greeted with a marked sense of optimism. With only one year’s worth of managerial experience, since he finished his career at Leverkusen last season, Hyypiä is perhaps a risk. But if Leverkusen need anything right now, it is a change in atmosphere. And a fresh, and indeed familiar face, could be just what the doctor ordered.

It certainly appears to have been the case with Michael Ballack, who, since Hyypiä’s appointment, has wasted no time in expressing how delighted he is that the new coach is someone with whom he has a mutual understanding. No wonder, given that he looks set to return first team football, but with the amount of headlines Ballack has made over the season, keeping him quiet might well be a wise move from the interim coach.

Certainly, though, a young and relatively inexperienced man in the caretaker position is not a novel idea for the Bundesliga’s big clubs. When FC Bayern sacked Louis van Gaal last spring, it was his number two Andries Jonker who subsequently guided them back to form and the third Champions League spot, and was granted the job of coaching the reserves the following summer. Indeed, with Director of Sport Rudi Völler insisting that Hyypiä has “one hundred per cent backing”, it seems that being a temporary coach is actually more desirable than a long term contract in the Bundesliga.

Hyypiä is charged with ensuring that Leverkusen are playing in Europe next season, a goal which the likes of Hannover, Werder Bremen and Wolfsburg are determined to deny. But whatever happens, the Finn should take as much as possible from the rare experience of having complete backing from a Bundesliga board.

If he wants any proof of how difficult managership can be in Germany, he need only ask his former Liverpool team mate Markus Babbel. After gaining automatic promotion with Hertha BSC, Babbel left after the politics of the European managerial system caught up with him. He is now at Hoffenheim, having taken over from the brutally dismissed Holger Stanislawski, and is, like his predecessor, rooted firmly in mid table. His successor at Berlin, Michael Skibbe, lasted barely a month, while the capital club plunged itself into a relegation fight which has now seen five managers lose their jobs.

It is, in short, complete mayhem. The so-called managerial merry-go-round which just keeps turning. Whether it is the fact that the system of having a Director of Sport or Team Manager leaves the Head Coach in a more vulnerable position, or whether it is simply the modern trend to sack a manager after a single poor run of form, one thing is for sure: Ottmar Hitzfeld’s old maxim that “Being Bayern manager is great, so long as you’re first”, might as well apply to just about any Bundesliga team. As he sets off on his coaching career, Sami Hyypiä cuts a confident figure, but he should be careful where he treads.
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Slightly old (8 days ago) article:

A small ship glides on the surface of the Alster Lake in the centre of Hamburg. Finnish football legend Sami Hyypiä sits on the ninth floor of the luxurious Le Royal Méridien Hotel and chats calmly about the evening's game.

Hyypiä assumed the role as caretaker coach of the German Bundesliga team Bayer 04 Leverkusen exactly a week ago. Hyypiä's plans to spend a quiet Easter holiday with his family in Finland were quickly cast aside.

The kick-off is in five hours' time. As a player Hyypiä grew accustomed to the preceding routines. Resting, waiting, and tuning into the right frame of mind. The techniques were internalised through constant repetition.

On Saturday morning, the team had one more training session back home in Leverkusen before flying to Hamburg for the evening. The night was spent in the lakeside hotel with spectacular views of the entire city.

"I always want to win every single game", Hyypiä says in the top floor lounge. The spring sun shines brightly through the windows.

If Hyypiä were the nervous type he hardly would have scheduled an interview with a Finnish journalist just hours before the game.

The conversation turns to Michael Ballack, the brightest - albeit already slightly fading - star on the team.

"Yes, Ballack will be in the opening line-up, but do not publish that piece of information just yet", Hyypiä says.

It might present the new coach in a somewhat odd light if the information regarding the makeup of the opening squad were released to the Germans hours in advance via Finland.

"I hope he will play well and continue to appear in the next six games", Hyypiä says of Ballack, who was forced to remain off the pitch for about five weeks owing to a calf injury.

Moments later Leverkusen's Director of Sport Rudi Völler turns up dressed casually in a pair of jeans.

Völler shakes my hand, exchanges a couple of friendly comments and disappears. There does not seem to be any kind of tension in the air, despite the fact that the team has lost four league matches in a row and received a new head coach as a result.

"Difficult to say", is Hyypiä's reply when I ask which is more intense – to prepare for a match as a player or as a coach.

After the chat Hyypiä, who is dressed in a track suit, goes to have lunch with the team.

Half an hour before kick-off Hyypiä walks on the grass of the gigantic Hamburg arena, as more than 50,000 spectators take their seats.

In an away game neither Hyypiä, nor Ballack, or any other Leverkusen player is a star. They are all just opponents.

HSV of Hamburg draws first blood at 40 minutes with a penalty kick by Mladen Petrić. Towards the beginning of the second half André Schürrle scores an equaliser following a corner kick.

Were you terrified, when the ball was moved to the penalty spot?

"These things happen. It is part of the game", Hyypiä describes in the bowels of the HSV stadium, while players around him keep wandering back and forth to their warm-down drills and numerous interviews.

"As a player I have endured much and I believe I can do the same as a coach."

In Hamburg Hyypiä speaks with the authority of a person who has been the head coach for a week. And yet, in light of his long career as a top European footballer it is easy to believe him.

Good-humoured Völler reappears, now dressed in a stylish dark grey suit. He grabs Hyypiä by the arm.

"It was easier as a player, wasn't it", Völler smiles and moves on. Hyypiä smiles in agreement.

From Völler's conduct one can detect that he is pleased with the away point picked up against Hamburg. The 1-1 draw will keep Leverkusen in the top seven in the leagues before the series continues with a home game against Kaiserslautern on Wednesday.

"I was slightly nervous wondering how this would go", Hyypiä admits after his first game as the new Leverkusen coach.
Hyypiä was aiming for victory but had to settle for a draw. Still, the one point that he earned surely made the four-hour bus ride back home that much more enjoyable.

Bayer Leverkusen's most famous player Michael Ballack, 35, is impressed with Sami Hyypiä's career development.

As players the two entered the pitch many times together in the Leverkusen ranks, even as late as last season, but during this Easter week Ballack has been sweating in training sessions led by Sami Hyypiä, the coach.

"It is far from normal that a person is elevated to a position as important as that of the coach of the Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen only months after finishing his own career as a player", Ballack says after the 1-1 away draw against HSV of Hamburg.

“Hyypiä is a quality guy. People believe in him", Ballack continues. He has served as the captain of the German national team for several years.

"If a team keeps losing week after week, this will start to eat into the players' self-confidence. Sami spends a lot of time talking to the guys to restore their self-esteem. This is important. Young players need faith in themselves", Ballack says.

The past week Ballack has trained with Leverkusen under the guidance of Hyypiä and the club's Under-19s coach Sascha Lewandowski.

Last spring Leverkusen finished second in the Bundesliga. The panic hit the team management when all the seven roads to European pitches started closing down one after another.

Hyypiä and Lewandowski were hired to rescue the situation. To have any kind of shot at European football next season Bayer need to retain their seventh place at least in the league. The chances of finishing in the top three were already lost earlier in the winter.

"The team has to work in cooperation with Sami and Sascha. All chances have to be utilised. This is a difficult situation", Ballack says. His present contract with Leverkusen will come to a close at the end of the spring. After that everything is still open.

"Sami is a personality, not just as a player but also as a coach", says Ballack, whom Hyypiä took off at the 65th minute of the Sunday game.

"Sami worked fantastically the whole week making use of his calmness and his personality", Ballack confirms. "When he is in the dressing room everybody focuses and listens to what he has to say."
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4 wins 2 draws 13 scored 6 conceded.


Bayer Leverkusen director of sport Rudi Voller says interim coaches Sami Hyypia and Sascha Lewandowski could take charge on a full-time basis after a successful end to the season.

A 4-1 win at Nuremberg clinched fifth place in the Bundesliga and an automatic berth in the group stage of the Europa League next term, and Voller hailed the duo's contribution.

After taking over from Robin Dutt on April 1, Hyypia and Lewandowski guided the club to an unbeaten run of four wins and two draws from six matches.

"When you pick up points like that, then it is a positive argument," Voller was quoted as saying by Kicker magazine.

"And when you also see how the pair were accepted by the team, then you can imagine continuing with both of them."

Leverkusen have been in no rush to find a permanent successor for Dutt, but now the season is over and they know what competitions they will be playing in next season, the search can start in earnest.

"It would be negligent of us not to consider other options," added Voller.

"We will now analyse things in depth."
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P.S. Mauricio Pellegrino's reportedly replacing Unai Emery as Valencia boss.

http://www.cope.es/varios/06-05-12--mauricio-pellegrino-nuevo-entrenador-del-valencia-287837-1
 
keniget said:
Where is Emery going?
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Under pressure after poor 2nd half of the season and failure to progress further in the Europa League. Linked with Spartak Moscow role.


Under-pressure Valencia coach Unai Emery has emerged as a possible candidate to succeed Spartak Moscow’s acting coach Valery Karpin after Emery and Karpin reportedly said the move was possible.

Karpin submitted his resignation in April 2011 after a string of poor results but has carried on in a temporary capacity and is seeking his own successor.

Emery is likely to leave Valencia at the end of the season, and the club has admitted holding talks to replace him with former Chelsea coach Andre Villas-Boas.

“Spartak is one of the possible options for me to continue my career,” Emery told the Spanish media after Valencia’s 1-0 win over Villarreal on Saturday.

Karpin had earlier said that Emery, whom he played alongside at Real Sociedad between 1995 and 1996, could be on Spartak’s shortlist, but played down hopes of his appointment.

“It could be that he is on the list of names that we have, but at the moment it is almost impossible for him to come here,” Karpin told Valencia newspaper Las Provincas while visiting Spain on Friday.

“I would say there is only one chance in a hundred.”

Emery would be Spartak’s first foreign coach since ex-Denmark midfielder Michael Laudrup was fired in April 2009, and former Spartak and Russia defender Viktor Bulatov said he would welcome the Basque coach joining the club.

“He’s a progressive coach, there’s the constantly improving Spanish football values like ball control and quick passing, based on a high level of technical skill on the part of the players. These characteristics are close to Spartak’s traditions,” he told RIA Novosti on Sunday.

But former Spartak, Celta Vigo and Russia midfielder Alexander Mostovoi disagreed.

“I don’t see anything extraordinary about Emery,” he told RIA Novosti.

“He didn’t have the results last year, and this year not everything’s going smoothly. Overall, a mid-level, ordinary coach like many others.”

Spartak are fourth in the Russian Premier League, 16 points behind leaders Zenit St. Petersburg, who have already won the title.

Valencia occupy third place in the Spanish league, but are 36 points behind leaders Real Madrid and 29 behind second-placed Barcelona.

Karpin scored 28 goals in 117 total appearances at Spartak in the 1990s. He spent 11 seasons in Spain, scoring 68 goals in 378 games playing for Real Sociedad, Valencia and Celta Vigo.
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From now on, Bayer 04 manager Sami Hyypiä will dedicate himself completely to the Werkself after being officially released from his position of assistant coach by the Finland Football Association.

Finland coach Mixu Paatelainen announced Hyypiä’s departure at a press conference in Helsinki ahead of Friday’s international against Turkey in Salzburg. “Sami doesn’t have the time to be our assistant coach. We fully understand his situation and wish him all the best in his hew role,” said Paatelainen before adding: “We Finns are proud that one of our own is managing a side in the Bundesliga.”

Bayer 04 manager Hyypiä, who was not in Helsinki, and coach Sascha Lewandowski have recently agreed a three-year deal at Leverkusen. The 38-year-old former defender made 105 appearances for Finland between 1992 and 2010.
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A FINNISH band have released a quirky musical tribute to legendary defender and former Liverpool FC captain Sami Hyypia.

Under the tongue-in-cheek name of The Left Foot Company, the group of musicians expressed their adoration for the talented footballer through the medium of a song, “Big Sam (The Great Defender)”, which has now been uploaded to website Youtube.

The lyrics were written by Jari Haapala who was Sami Hyypia's coach in his home town of Kuusankoski when he was just 17-years-old.

Jari said: “I have been a coach, teacher and headmaster and it’s only now I have some time for myself have been able to write songs”.

The lyric “Hey Big Sam, could we ever understand how hard it is to fight every week against the stars” encapsulates the challenges Sami Hyypia had to face during his career.

Jari said: “For me the song is about how hard it was training in the cold weather and snow in Finland.

“It’s about making people understand what we went through.

“This is the first song I’ve ever recorded so it was a great experience for me to be in a studio with professional musicians.”

The official music video was directed by award winning director Jesse Tervolin, who lives in the same village where Sami spent his first 20 years.

The video features nostalgic scenes starring a pint-sized version of the sporting giant kicking a ball around the streets of his home town.

Hyypia left Liverpool at the end of the 2010-11 season to play for and later manage German club Bayer Leverkusen.
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Great job by the duo (Hyypia & Sascha) for steering Leverkusen to 3rd spot - 4 pts behind 2nd placed Dortmund with a game to go.

Leverkusen has moved to avoid a Houllier-Evans scenario by confirming Sascha as Youth team Head Coach. Hyypia's gonna make his debut in the CL next season!


Sascha Lewandowski will end his successful work as head coach at Bayer 04 after the final game of the season at Hamburg SV on Saturday. The 41-year-old, who worked alongside team boss Sami Hyypiä to get the Werkself to third position and direct qualification for the UEFA Champions League, will take up the new role of Youth head coach at Bayer 04 for the start of next season. Lewandowski has signed a contract to 30 June 2016.

“I’m happy that I’ve been able to help over the past 14 months after taking charge of the first team alongside Sami Hyypiä in a difficult situation,” explained Lewandowski. “We now have a functioning team that has great potential and is playing good and successful football. It hasn’t been an easy decision as I have to give up the excellent collaboration with the players and the prospect of a great challenge in the Champions League. On the other hand, I’m looking forward very much to my new job.”

Bayer 04 managing director Wolfgang Holzhäuser stated, “we would have liked to carry on working with Sascha Lewandowski as before. But after careful consideration, we came to the conclusion that he feels more at home with youth football. Sascha has already produced outstanding work in that area over the years. In his new role as Youth head coach he will make a significant contribution to making it easier for youth players to progress to the first team squad. Sascha Lewandowski will play a key role in our youth set-up in terms of helping the youngsters to develop and optimising their performance levels,” said Holzhäuser.

And sporting director Rudi Völler highlighted Lewandowski’s role in helping the Werkself to achieve Champions League qualification. “Sascha has worked with Sami Hyypiä to get the team to a higher level. We have performed brilliantly to overcome strong competition like Schalke 04. That can’t be underestimated at all. At the same time, we had to persuade Sascha to join the first team squad before the start of the season. He has maintained his critical distance to the whole business and he has stuck to that position despite the great results. But, in his new role, Sascha will continue to have a direct influence on the future look of our Bundesliga team, which will led by a strong coaching team around Sami Hyypiä next season.”
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Voeller was quoted in some non-mainstream media sites as having said some time in April that he expected to lose Hyypia at some point, as it was the Finn's dream to return to manage Liverpool one day.
 
From Jamie Redknapp's latest column
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...rdiff-Citys-survival-bid--Jamie-Redknapp.html
Sami Hyypia played 464 games in a decade at Liverpool and was one of my favourite team-mates. I didn’t see him becoming a manager but he has made a spectacular start to his time in charge of Bayer Leverkusen.

On Saturday they beat Borussia Monchengladbach to record his ninth successive win, a run which started at the end of last season. They are joint top after three games with Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich.

It wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up in a big job in England before his time in the dug-out is up. He always loved being over here.
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100% Legend.

Would love to see him back at Liverpool some day though I think that now appears a little unlikely.
 
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