Erik ten Hag was dismissed by Bayer Leverkusen after a disastrous early run, including a second Bundesliga game in which the team squandered a 3-1 lead and a numerical advantage. Werder Bremen’s 18-year-old Karim Coulibaly, promoted from the under-19s, scored a first senior goal to force a late leveller. The comeback exposed a lack of direction, leadership, and convincing performance under Ten Hag. The club judged the result and performance unacceptable, producing a brutal and historic decision to remove the coach after only a handful of matches in charge.
Whether Erik ten Hag will choose to get over his latest breakup with a tub of ice-cream in front of a rewatch of Notting Hill is open to conjecture but if he did, the Irish singer's lyrics dotted through the film are sure to have an added poignancy. Ten Hag didn't need telling that in only his second Bundesliga game in charge of Bayer Leverkusen, they and he had had a bad afternoon.
A first senior goal for the 18-year-old Karim Coulibaly, deftly poked in from just inside the six-yard box after a chaotic spell of pressure, gave the home side a wildly celebrated and barely believable leveller. As this was the last image of Ten Hag in Leverkusen, Coulibaly's surprise intervention he was drafted in from the under-19 team for a first start after a slew of injuries will feel like the full stop, the moment that pushed the coach over the edge.
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