Erik ten Hag and Sandro Wagner were among the initial appointments confirmed as new coaches in the Bundesliga for the upcoming 2025/26 season, but they are certainly not the only notable arrivals. This overview highlights some of the key managerial changes ahead of the new campaign.
Erik ten Hag
Ten Hag is set to return to Germany as head coach of Bayer Leverkusen, aiming to challenge his former club Bayern Munich for the title. He previously coached Bayern Munich`s reserve team between 2013 and 2015.
While leading the Bayern reserves, he secured the Bavarian Regionalliga title (fourth tier) in the 2013/14 season, with his team scoring an impressive 94 goals.
His time in Germany`s lower leagues was sandwiched between coaching spells in his native Netherlands, where he managed FC Twente, PSV Eindhoven, Go Ahead Eagles, Utrecht, and most notably, Ajax.
His tenure at Ajax truly established his reputation. He won six trophies with the Amsterdam club, including three league titles. He also guided them to the UEFA Champions League semi-finals in 2018/19, famously beating Real Madrid 4-1 at the Bernabeu en route.
Ten Hag joins Leverkusen following a two-year stint at Manchester United in England, where he won the FA Cup and League Cup before departing in October last year.
Ten Hag steered Manchester United to FA Cup glory in 2024.
Sandro Wagner
Sandro Wagner, the new boss at Augsburg, also has recent experience in the Bavarian Regionalliga, having won the title with SpVgg Unterhaching at the end of the 2022/23 season.
A former striker for clubs like Bayern, Hoffenheim, and Darmstadt, Wagner achieved 47 wins from 78 matches in his first senior coaching role. In his second season, he led Unterhaching to promotion into the 3. Liga. He then accepted an offer from Julian Nagelsmann to become his assistant with the Germany national team in September 2023.
Wagner spent nearly two years as part of the German national team`s coaching staff, contributing to their run to the EURO 2024 quarter-finals.
Now, in his first solo role in the top flight, his task is to improve an Augsburg side that finished 12th in the Bundesliga in the 2024/25 season.
Merlin Polzin
Merlin Polzin, formerly assistant to Steffen Baumgart at his childhood club Hamburg, took interim charge of the first team in November 2024 following Baumgart`s dismissal. The 34-year-old was permanently appointed a month later, making him the youngest head coach in Germany`s top two divisions.
Polzin successfully navigated the challenge of guiding Hamburg back to the Bundesliga, overseeing nine wins, four draws, and four losses in the remaining 17 matches of the season. This strong finish earned the Red Shorts promotion back to the top flight for the first time since their relegation in 2017/18.
Polzin now faces the different challenge of keeping Hamburg in the league and will compete against his former colleague Baumgart, now at Union Berlin.
Horst Steffen
Similar to others on this list, the 2025/26 season will mark Horst Steffen`s debut as a Bundesliga coach. Now with Werder Bremen, the 56-year-old came close to reaching the top tier with Elversberg last season, finishing third in Bundesliga 2.
Although they lost the subsequent promotion/relegation play-off against Heidenheim, Steffen`s Elversberg side earned widespread praise for their attacking style of play and their remarkable ascent through the divisions.
Steffen took charge when Elversberg was in the fourth tier. He guided them to an 11th-place finish in their first-ever Bundesliga 2 campaign in 2023/24. Last season, his team was the joint-second highest scoring side in the league, with young talents thriving under his leadership.
He now takes over a Werder Bremen team that finished just one point shy of European qualification in 2024/25, with the aim of helping them make that step up in the upcoming season.
After seven years with Elversberg, Horst Steffen is stepping into the Bundesliga with Werder Bremen.
Lukas Kwasniok
After leading Paderborn to a fourth-place finish in Bundesliga 2 last season, just three points behind Steffen`s Elversberg, Lukas Kwasniok will also experience coaching in the Bundesliga for the first time in 2025/26, having taken over at newly promoted Cologne.
Kwasniok was appointed at Paderborn before the 2021/22 season, overseeing an impressive seventh-place finish, an improvement of two positions and four points from the previous year.
Having pushed for promotion with Paderborn, Lukas Kwasniok is now making the leap into the Bundesliga with Cologne.
He demonstrated consistency with subsequent sixth and seventh-place finishes in 2022/23 and 2023/24, confirming the 43-year-old`s growing reputation as a coach.
Having begun his coaching career in amateur football, stints at Karlsruhe, Carl Zeiss Jena, and Saarbrücken have paved his way to the top tier.
