Erik ten Hag, the new manager of Bayer Leverkusen, has shared his thoughts after his team lost 5-1 to Flamengo’s Under-20 team in a friendly match played on Friday.

The Dutch coach said the scoreline was bad but also made it clear that he doesn’t care about the result since it’s just a pre-season game.

This match marked Ten Hag’s first game in charge since he was hired to replace former manager Xabi Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen. He took over after being sacked by Manchester United in October last year.

For the match, Ten Hag picked a strong lineup and kept the same 3-4-2-1 formation used by Alonso. However, even with the solid team, Leverkusen still lost heavily.

After the match, Ten Hag told reporters that although the result looked terrible, he wasn’t too worried about it. He said pre-season games don’t matter much to him.

He added that while it’s never okay to lose like that, his main concern was keeping all the players injury-free. He also mentioned that he would have preferred to play the game at a later time.

Leverkusen will play their next friendly match on Sunday, July 27, against VfL Bochum.