Malik Tillman’s impressive two seasons with PSV has led to the American midfielder making a new jump in his club career.
Bayer Leverkusen acquired Tillman in a permanent deal with PSV, both clubs announced Saturday. The 23-year-old signed a five-year contract with the Bundesliga side until June 2030.
PSV will reportedly receive €35 million ($41 million) for Tillman’s services.
“In Malik Tillman we have gained another player who has great ability and is very dangerous in front of goal. He can play in midfield either as a number 10 or as a number 8. Malik is an absolute top signing for us,” said Leverkusen managing director of sport Simon Rolfes. “His style suits Bayer 04 Leverkusen down to the ground. Our attacking game will gain a new boost thanks to Malik’s dynamism.”
A former Bayern Munich youth player, Tillman scored 16 goals and added five assists for PSV last season. He won two Eredivisie titles during his time in the Netherlands, teaming up with American teammates Sergino Dest and Ricardo Pepi.
Prior to his move to Holland, Tillman spent time with Scottish Premiership side Rangers, scoring 12 goals in 43 appearances.
Bayer Leverkusen lifted the Bundesliga title during the 2023-24 season under Xabi Alonso, but finished 13 points behind Bayern Munich during the most recent campaign. Alonso departed the club to become the new manager at Real Madrid, opening the door for Erik Ten Hag to fill the vacancy at Leverkusen.
After two league titles in succession in the Netherlands, Tillman now wants to achieve great things with Bayer 04,” Tillman said. “This club has always played great football. But in the last four or five years Leverkusen have grown enormously and become attractive to a lot of players throughout Europe. I want to win something. That was my aim in Glasgow and in Eindhoven and it remains my aim here.”
Bayer Leverkusen opens its competitive schedule on August 15 against SG in the German Cup.
Zendejas starting the srason off strong again. Scored Americas goal in the opener. Really think this guy needs to be brought back to the USMNT in September. Really could have used him at the Gold Cup.
Who are you taking out? Pulisic, Weah, Tillman, Luna, Wright, or Aaronson?
Definitely Aaronson. Zemdejas is better.
hey 2tone, I like both those players, Zendejas and BA, and I think we can win with both. It’s a whole year away, injuries will have their say in all of this too. we’ll see what transpires. Vasquez another, I know he got hurt but he actually scores goals in the uni 😉
to me he just dances around then gets nervous and can’t separate. 11 caps, 511′ played, goal on grenada, assist on st. kitts. meh. he’s like gutierrez but without the precision balls across. and i barely rate him because he can’t separate either.
weah, reyna, campbell, dest, tillman, paredes if he ever gets healthy, musah or sargent as wings. heck, i’d rather have cowell because speed and sloppy chaos are better than nothing.
to underline something, i don’t care what he does in club when his MNT body of work is so consistent(ly meh). this isn’t an all star team of club stats, it’s can you help us. other than he runs around a lot, he can’t help much.
and i even left off luna. we keep accumulating talent. i think campbell deserves a try and he’s way better than zendejas.
anyhow, this should be a contest among the ones already peforming, or dark horses like campbell and banks. there is no reason to go backwards to the failed guys with double digit caps who couldn’t cut it when we had less talent.
instead, you go forward and you “thunderdome” the production players we already know.
Cade Cowell will hopefully see more time this season. His new number is 7.
Congratulations. hope the experience is a real confidence build. he was a different player in the nat uni this last cycle, he showed it from game 1 defensively that he had new things going on that side of the ball and kept it up mostly, overall performance boosted across the board and confidence earned, and teamed with some other nat ‘a’ listers, he’ll play even better imo.
on this move to the Bundesliga hope he doesn’t get pegged into the replacing Wirtz hole with the club record fee paid and all that, but it’s inevitable I think, so hope he’s ready for it and rooting for him of course
Injury/ preseason updates:
-Pepi returned in a friendly today. However, Dest came off early for muscle injury. Bosz commented after the match he didn’t think it was too serious.
-CCV is still recovering from offseason minor knee surgery and is only training by himself. Trusty started and played a half.
– Noahkai Banks started in Augsburg’s trouncing of a 7th division side.
– Bryan Okoh and Konrad de La Fuente both scored for Lausanne in their win over a 2nd division Swiss side.
Kevin Paredes started scored twice two minutes apart in a thrashing 12-0 Wolfsburg match. He seems to be at 100%.
More importantly, Vermont Green FC scored two in stoppage time at W. Mass Pioneers to draw – securing an undefeated season and the USL2 Eastern Division Championship. Two absolute stunner goals too. Up the Green!
Four straight for my Crew after going down 2 in the first 5 minutes to win the Hells is Real Derby! Taha Habroune with his first goal for the first team.
JR-
Watched that one. Looked like Cincinnati was headed to a 5-0 win and was just dominating…I had never seen the Crew look so discombobulated, at least not in this decade. (Pre-2000’s all MLS teams looked like that, just all the time.)
And then the Crew got their feet under them…and Oh My.
Don’t look now, but it looks like the newblets are growing into their roles. Again this year, Nancy’s making a case for being the best coach we’ve seen in MLS to date.
Q: they have been playing pretty well, if they can just get Gazdog to find his finishing boots. There’s talks of signing the striker from Al-Ahly who had a hat trick against Porto at CWC. After going winless in six in May, they’ve gone five in a row without a loss. Miami is heating up though
Paredes is definitely one i will be keeping an eye on this season. USMNT needs help on the wing. And he can double up as potentially a back up LB.
2tone,
“Paredes is definitely one i will be keeping an eye on this season. USMNT needs help on the wing.”
What makes him better than MaxArf?
Also James Sands played the 7th for St. Pauli – his birthday – and score as he started his comeback from his injury.
Hope he does well.
Al-Hilal trying to sign Pulisic. Will AC Milan turn down a big pay day? And will Pulisic turn down a big pay day? Should be interesting.
My bad Al Nassr. Christianos current team.
Well they just sent John Duran to Fenerbahce so he’ll get as many minutes as he wants.
This is big. I’ve personally always thought from pretty much the second I laid eyes on him that Tillman was one of the 2-3 most-talented guys in our pool and I think there’s a very good chance he’s about to prove me right.
What we’ve seen from him in prior stops is, there’s going to be an adjustment period…and then, as he gets his feet under him and starts understanding his role and the system, he starts emerging as a regular and then as a force. He didn’t come into Rangers with guns blazing; he didn’t immediately take over – or even start for – PSV upon arrival, and he had a bunch of anonymous games for the USMNT before the light when on. If past is prologue we’ll likely see something similar with Leverkusen…there is no doubt the B1 – especially the elite tier of the B1 – is a massive leap up for any player but Malik’s assuredly got the talent to make it. The guy is just a “composer”…he sort of glides around to his own beat, never seems to be in a hurry to the point he almost seems lazy, but he’s got a silky-smooth, casual first touch that’s as good as I’ve seen in the US pool maybe ever, and he’s got a significant portion of Gio Reyna’s flashy skills and magic in a much more athletic frame. His languid stride hides how fast he is until he drops it into another gear, and then he’s basically a Doberman that closes with almost startling speed and he’s shockingly physical when he arrives; he’ll body you right off the ball – often emphatically – or he’ll absolutely blow you up with a well-timed tackle that always seems to be flirting with a red card if he doesn’t get it just right.
Ironically, if he makes it at Leverkusen, he might well become what we always hoped Gio Reyna would be. But not since Claudio Reyna have we seen a US player in a position to be the string-puller on a contender-level Champions League squad. It’s a definitely a milestone, both for Tillman and the USMNT.
Tip of the cap, my man, and well done. Dude’s had a real good summer, for sure.
There is a lot of optimism in this post. I’m inclined to agree but I’m not as high on him for the Nats as you are. I also have some hope that he might hit his heights in the 26-27 season. I worry that he might not get adjusted soon enough to be in a “purple patch” by the Spring/Summer of ‘26 to make a significant difference in the World Cup squad.
In the physical and footballing side … Malik is a bigger dude that one first perceives. He’s nearly 6’2” so it never looks like he’s moving with the same energy and hustle of smaller guys like Adams; BUT he is quite an athlete and is only gonna get better at using his body as he fills out his frame in his mid 20’s.
I think he’s already what we expected Gio to be. And I like the Gio comp because they are both 02’s (Malik is 6 months older) and they are actually built pretty much the same. Additionally both play in the middle and wing. They each seem to have some dribbling capacity that can create not only a wow factor but also an offensive advantage when you combine a guy that large and skillful coming at you in a moment of defensive disorganization. What a nightmare these two can be!
I’d love to see Tillman and Reyna get on the field together in the 65” of a game to combine and run at tired defenses if we’re pushing for a goal. I think their slickness with the ball, physicality without it and ability to draw fouls in transition moments and in/around the box could tilt a game/the field for us in important ways.
Good on MT for getting a great move. Here’s to Gio replacing MT at PSV. He and Saibari in MF would be cool to see.
TX 3 Stepper,
I agree, there is a lot of optimism in this thread and for the last 6 weeks from the USMNT fanbase about Tillman, and while I hope he does well at Bayer, I have serious reservations about him being successful there.
He stood out during this past Gold Cup because of the subpar competition. Once the level ratcheted up vs Mexico, he did not show the personality or the nuts to grab the game by the scruff and make something out of nothing.
There are many reasons I have reservations about this move for him, many of which I have already shared, but look no further than the fact that the defenses he will face in the Bundesliga are a lot higher level than what he saw in the Eredivisie.
Come January 2026, it will be very interesting to see how Tillman is doing at Bayer.
Quozzel, PG,
Usmnt fans have a lot of expectations about Tillman but I don’t think Leverkusen are seeing him as a Wirtz immediate replacement. at least not right away. And while the GC didn’t hurt it’s clear this transfer is more because Malik has steadily been getting better everywhere he’s been since leaving Bayern.
Malik has always needed time to get accustomed to the culture of wherever he has been. Which I assume will be the case at Leverkusen. Hopefully he’ll be peaking by seasons end.