Leipzig appointed Martín Demichelis as its new coach on Monday and tied him to the club through June 2028, turning to the 45-year-old after firing Ole Werner last week.
The move gives Leipzig a long runway with a manager whose most recent job was at Mallorca, where he arrived in February this year before the club was relegated from La Liga last season. For Leipzig, the timing matters because Werner had already delivered third place in the Bundesliga and Champions League qualification, which made the dismissal harder to read from the outside and made the hiring of Demichelis the clearest sign that the club wanted a different course, not just a different voice.
Leipzig framed the appointment as a bet on a coach with both a playing pedigree and a growing track record on the touchline. Demichelis began his coaching career as an assistant at Malaga and also worked with several Bayern youth teams before taking his first senior managerial role at River Plate in 2022. He won an Argentine league and cup double in his debut season there, then moved on to Monterrey in 2024 before taking charge of Mallorca in February this year.
The club said Marcel Schäfer sees Demichelis as a coach who combines a clear footballing philosophy with intensity and strong expertise, and said he should bring fresh impetus while helping drive the team’s continued success and development. Demichelis, for his part, said the job was exactly the kind of challenge he wanted. He said he has great respect for what has been done in Leipzig and wants to build on those foundations with a side that plays bold, intense and exciting football, takes responsibility on the pitch and wins the crowd over with its passion.
That is the promise. The question is how quickly Leipzig expects him to turn it into results after making a sweeping change to a coach who had already done enough to secure a Champions League place. The contract through June 2028 suggests the club is thinking beyond a single season, and that makes the reasons for Werner's exit, still unexplained, as important as the identity of the man hired to replace him.
