Hannover 96 boss offers 'outstanding' Leeds United praise as 'scary' Whites 'humiliate' German foes
Leeds United made it two pre-season wins from two in a behind-closed-doors friendly on Wednesday
Hannover 96 head coach Stefan Leitl described Leeds United as top-class and believes the Whites have up to 15 ‘outstanding’ players within their ranks after Wednesday’s friendly meeting between the clubs.
Both teams play in the second tier of their respective countries, with the pre-season contest being held behind closed doors. Ilja Gruev and Joel Piroe made it 2-0 after 27 minutes with Mateo Joseph adding a further two goals in the second half either side of Lars Gindorf’s strike just after the hour.
The victory for Leeds comes after a 3-0 win over League Two Harrogate Town in North Yorkshire last week as they now prepare for second friendly in Germany, with that contest also set to be played behind closed doors with no live coverage. The Whites will then host La Liga side Valenica at Elland Road on August 3 as they prepare to kick off their Championship campaign against newly-promoted Portsmouth a week later.
Leitl felt his side let themselves down with their own performance but that did not stop him from offering glowing praise to Daniel Farke’s side. Speaking to German outlet BILD, the Hannover boss reflected: "We are good, but they are better than us. Leeds are top class, they have 12, 13, 14, 15 outstanding players. Against an opponent like that, we absolutely need to push ourselves to the limit - and we didn't have that today. It was a good test against such a team. The important thing is that they played properly. You have to suffer - and that's what we had to do today."
BILD described the loss as an humiliation for Hannover with Leeds labelled as ‘scary’ following their ruthless display. It is a positive start to pre-season for the Whites, who had a disrupted pre-season last time out as a number of players sought exits from the club following relegation from the Premier League. However, with Farke having 12 months under his belt as manager, he will hope better preparations this time out will help Leeds hit the ground running once the Championship campaign kicks off next month.
The sale of Archie Gray to Tottenham Hotspur for £40m will also allow Leeds to dictate terms if any clubs come in for some of their top players before the transfer window shuts at the end of August.