Leeds United cruised to a 4-1 friendly win over German side Hannover 96 on Wednesday afternoon in Germany behind closed doors, and Hannover boss Stefan Leitl was impressed.
Daniel Farke has taken a 27-man strong squad to Germany ahead of the season for a pre-season camp to work on the players’ fitness and tactics, with the opener against Portsmouth little over two weeks away.
Leeds will also face two pre-season friendlies during the week-long stay in Germany, and the first of those was Hannover 96 on Wednesday. A second-tier Germany side, but one that is pushing to be promoted.
Leeds were excellent in Farke’s home nation, scoring early through Ilia Gruev after a wonderful assist from Brenden Aaronson. A second came Georginio Rutter set up Joel Piroe to slam home a right-footed effort.
Hannover boss Stefan Leitl impressed by Leeds on Wednesday
A raft of changes were made by Farke at half-time and Leeds scored two more after the break, Mateo Joseph coming off the bench to nab both goals with Hannover scoring one themselves in the second 45.
Having watched his side lose to Leeds, Hannover manager Leitl gave his verdict on The Whites and it is fair to say he was impressed. He told BILD that Leeds have 15 “outstanding” players at the moment.
“We are good, but they’re better. Leeds are top class, they have 12, 13, 14, 15 outstanding players. With an opponent like that, we absolutely need to push ourselves to the limit – and we didn’t have that today.”
The winners from 4-1 win over Hannover on Wednesday
The return of Pascal Struijk was great to see, while Sam Byram staked his claim for the right-back slot as did new signing Jayden Bogle with an assist for one of Joseph’s goals in the second half during the win.
Aaronson looked sharp, Gruev and Piroe got their names on the score sheet, Joe Rodon was commanding as ever. Plenty of young players got minutes with Charlie Crew and James Debayo impressing again.
A great afternoon for Farke’s side, perhaps the only mistake from the entire game being Struijk allowing Hannover to have the chance in which they scored, a goal Illan Meslier could do very little about.
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